Trapped
by Star1086
Summary: Peter and Olivia are trapped. AU after Jacksonville. Rated M for all the right reasons. Now complete!
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Little drabble to keep me sane through the infuriating baby-gate. Post Jacksonville. I'm disappointed that they never really told us anything more on Peter's sketchy past, and I decided that that Big Eddie is after something a little more dangerous than money.

Rated M for safety: O/P will be dealing with some pretty shitty stuff.

* * *

"Olivia—stay with me."

Trying to stench the blood flow as it seeps through his fingers seems like a losing battle. He can smell the metallic odor wafting up and it makes his stomach churn, but he has to keep calm—he needs to think; he can find way out, but he needs to figure it out fast.

Leaning over her rigid body on the cold concrete of the floor frightens him, mind racing furiously on how to stop the growing pool of blood as it bleeds freely out of the gunshot wound in her left shoulder. Soon it's spilling out onto his hands and all he can do is wish Walter was there because he'd know what to do.

She needs medical attention; he knows that much—she's losing blood at an alarming speed and it won't be long before she goes into shock and by then there would be nothing he can do to save her. He has precious minutes to staunch the bleeding and get them the hell of there.

There are no windows in the room but he knows exactly where they are and that frightens him slightly more than the fact that Olivia was slowly bleeding out in front of him. Their only chance of escape is through the bolted door he can't open—they're fucked.

"Olivia—wake up, stay with me." He leans all his weight onto his flattened hand, knowing he's probably hurting her but deciding she'd forgive him if she survived.

_When she survives, _he corrects—as he feels another twang of terror wash over him.

When her eyes roll back he grips her chin hard, pulling her face to regain her focus, leaving little smudges of blood on her cheeks. "C'mon Olivia, you've gotta stay awake," he growls angrily at her, leaning into the rage rather than being crippled by the panic.

"Peter?" She whispers, eyes fluttering open and a sheen of sweat covering her pale face. Her eyes crinkle a little as she looks at him, her chest hitching distinctly like something she sees alarms her. Like somehow she sees him differently and he mutters a frightened "What?" because even as she lays there dying, he still needs to know what she's thinking.

But he can't dwell on it because he feels her chest jerk as she coughs; a wet, gargling sound that makes her choke like she's swallowed water. Peter feels a new surge of panic as she struggles to breathe, shifting his body to lift her head to try to open her air passage but the coughing doesn't stop. He lets go of the wound to swipe his fingers through her mouth, feeling more sticky wetness there. She coughs; little raindrops of crimson spilling onto her chin and on his already tarnished hands and he feels like a little boy lost—because he knows what this means:

There's liquid in her lungs.

She goes limp in his arms—eyes rolling back and her head heavy in his hand.

Time had run out.


	2. Chapter 2

It's a kneejerk reaction whenever Peter Bishop thinks he's going to die, he has the overwhelming urge to drink—a lot.

It's been a different context over the last year, but still almost a daily occurrence: instead of staring down the business end of a Glock 9mm in some back alley to almost being blown to smithereens in a building rigged with blinking lights because he's unwilling to let Olivia kill herself trying to disarm it with her mind; he always celebrates with straight whisky.

And after the night he's had, he could definitely use a few shots.

To Jacksonville and back in a matter of hours, red-eyed and overworked trying to keep the inevitable from happening: keeping a building somewhere in Boston from sling-shotting into an alternative reality with everyone in it. Even his above average intellect or Massive Dynamic's limitless resources couldn't change the unavoidable. He failed, hiding in the little control room in the basement of the massive building tinkering with the software because it was the only thing he could think of doing when Olivia found him.

"I figured if I could shut down all the non-essential functions, I can make these things run faster."

She blamed herself; he could read it on her face plain as day, and he almost expected it from her. He stepped cautiously to her, the overwhelming urge to comfort taking hold of him.

"It's too late. I failed. I failed and I'm supposed to be the one who can stop things like this."

It's a poignant moment when he reaches for her cheek, smoothing her skin with his thumb. There's a switch flicking on in his chest—he tried to rationalize that he only wanted to console his friend: that it was platonic, a partnership drawing strength from one another, but whatever he was feeling, it wasn't platonic.

"Olivia," He stumbles her name, hesitating. "You... I've never met anyone who can do the things that you do."

"I'm scared." She shares without wavering.

He wasn't scared; he guessed that he should have been. He should have been terrified because somewhere close people would be disappearing, but all he wanted to do was taste her.

"Don't be." He said, pulling her face to him. She pulled back.

"What?"

Realization dawns on her and he's only a second behind.

"Peter, I'm scared." She had her answer.

She found the glimmer, saved the building, and the day. Peter was high on the adrenalin from the outfall of the tense moments before she realized the affects of fear on her perception. He secretly hoped the fear wasn't from the thought of what he tried to do. With the seriousness of the situation passed, all he wanted to do was get shitfaced. And for once, she agreed to join him.

He takes her to a place near his and Walter's home, convincing her to walk through the brisk Boston air promising the heat the bar will provide. He doesn't miss the downward look she gives him when she arrives in his foyer, instead chalking it to nervousness and retrieve his coat, worried she's already regretted telling him yes to drinks for once. They make their way into the night, feeling the still air of the night as they leave.

Soon they're squished onto two stools at the bar at a place named Shamley's, on their third shot and Peter's starting to feel feather-light. He grins when Olivia orders two more whisky's, watching as her hair spills down her back and his stomach feels infinitesimally warmer; he rarely gets to see her outside of her FBI wardrobe and he's feeling slightly drunk and less than brotherly toward her.

"What should we cheers to?" she asks, shaking back the strands of hair that have fallen over her face as she holds out his drink for him. Ignoring the glass, he reaches out to brush the rest back over her shoulder without meaning to, his fingers lingering for moments too long in her hair. Caught, he pulls back and takes the glass, lifting it toward her. He's grateful that she decides not to comment.

"To surviving another day," he jokes, knocking it back and letting it warm his throat. He eyes her over his glass, watching her eyes bounce down to his throat as he swallows and back up before taking a sip with slightly reddened cheeks.

After an hour, he's purposely invading her space; their coats discarded and forgotten on an empty stool beside them, watching her lips twitch as she tries to keep herself from smiling when he shows her another card trick. She's leaning into him, knees inches from touching but he knows she's being cautious enough to make certain they don't. The bar is near deserted, most of the remaining patrons carrying on in their own conversations and leaving them in their own world.

"Okay, pick one from the stack," he goads, fanning the deck between his hands in front of her. She bites her nails, trying to work out the trick before she chooses. He likes it more to know bothers her that she can't figure it out.

She finally selects one; leaning away from him to guarantee he's not cheating. She accidently brushes her knee against the inside of his as she tilts, and Peter has a hard time remembering the rest of the trick as he takes in the shock of electricity that passes between them. She returns upright, unaware of what transpired to hunch down low in her seat to return the card in a new place in the stack, her eyes flashing wickedly. She lays her chin onto her hand, elbow crooked on the bar: waiting with a bemused smirk. She swipes at her whisky and sips, her smile coming easier with each passing drink.

"Did anyone ever tell you that you take whisky like a frat boy?" he says and she snorts, covering her face with her hand and turning away to hide her laughter. Her mood is contagious and he can't help but join her, cupping the cards in one hand to pry her fingers away from her face with the other, wanting to turn her focus on him so he can watch her giggle.

"Hey," he starts, but the change in her face stops him from finishing the smart-ass thing he forgot to say. With a quick turn of her chin, he's cupping her cheek, fingering the loose hairs swaying there and his stomach jumps into his brain. He could feel her breath tickle his wrist as he watches her laughter fade and her eyes droop someplace below his nose. He could feel his throat bob as he swallows convulsively, forgetting the cards as the trick dies in his hand and he abandons them on the bar, moving his hand instead to rest tentatively on her knee as it sits between his and feels the same heat radiating through her like a current. He wonders if he touched her hard enough she'd shock him.

"Peter," she whispers, the side of her mouth pulling up into a lopsided grin. If she was anxious he couldn't tell because Peter was scared shitless at the way she's looking dangerously at him. He doesn't trust himself to answer so he just waits, his eyes shifting for a moment behind her as she leans toward him cautiously.

But Peter isn't watching her anymore.

His eyes focus on the two men sitting at the end of the bar: a big guy with a black leather jacket and a shorter greasy looking prick with a thick mustache—both focusing pointedly at him. Peter feels the blood drain from his face as he places them in his memory. Terrifying images of dark allies and broken fingers swirl around like smoke in his mind and his fight or flight instinct kicks in.

He shifts his thumb over her lips, halting her inch from his face and she makes a little 'humph' sound that would be torture if he wasn't sweating bullets right then. Her eyes widen as she notices he's not looking at her anymore, that he's lost somewhere behind her.

"What is it?" She whispers, he can smell the whisky on his face she's so close to him. Her whole body coils reflexively from her FBI training and he's not sure what to tell her.

Peter's voice is strained and when he talks the words come out gruffer than he intends: "We've gotta go." He says, disentangling from her to reach for his wallet with shaking fingers to pull out two twenties to toss on the bar. Rising to his feet, motioning for Olivia to do the same, and pulls her up when she's too slow on the uptake. Her face is a blank canvas as he shoves her leather jacket at her as he's sliding into his own, scanning the rest of the bar inconspicuously for anyone else he may know. There's no one, save the men who are now standing in unison; he grips Olivia's arm hard before she even has a chance to put her jacket on as he towing her through of the bar, damning himself for suggesting they walk because now they'll have to make a run for it. He's mapping out their escape route in his head as they clomp their way through the bar for no other reason other than to pretend he had some sort of plan.

"What's going on?" Olivia barks, shoving her arms into her coat but not before slapping Peter's arm away. Peter slides his eyes over her, searching without hope for the holster that's usually glued to her, the irony of the situation not entirely lost on him. He steers her unapologetically, his hand gripping her again as he pushes the door open to shove her through into the night, looking over his shoulder to see if they were followed. The men remain by the bar, and Peter feels a surge relief and for a split second he thinks he's overly paranoid, but it's better to be crazy than dead.

He's almost jogging, pulling her behind him as they travel the length of the exterior of the bar; she's a little shaky on her feet but his hand is a steel vice on her arm to keep her moving. Fear is radiating off him like a homing beacon and he feels almost more exposed out in the deserted streets, and he wonders if it was a better idea to say inside the bar—but he wouldn't put it past the men to show tact while murdering him inside a bar full of people. They see the corner and he's almost calmed down enough to breathe, dropping his hand down to grip Olivia's, realizing he's probably left his palm print on the inside of her arm. He turns to shoot her a reassuring smile, hoping it's enough to bluff his ensuing freak-out he's sure he was going to have when they get out of this unscathed.

They round the building and he feels the attack before he sees it, feeling the sharp pain exploding his face as something hard and fast collides with it and the world goes black.


	3. Chapter 3

Somehow he's transported to a dilapidated warehouse that smells like a revolting mix of gasoline and urine. Two men tower over him, laughing as they kick the living shit out of him and all he can do is try to protect his skull from being crushed in. The distinct cackle reverberates in the hallowed building and he thinks madly that it would be better suited for an evil woodland creature than the ugly guy whose half his size. He remembers rolling onto his back, feeling his eyes swell shut and waiting to see if he'll die that day.

He didn't—but he thinks it wouldn't have been entirely a terrible thing because it would have saved him from enduring his brain boiling in his skull at this moment.

It feels like a two-by-four colliding with his nose and he clutches his face instinctively, staggering into Olivia and knocking her off balance as she tries to keep him upright. Focusing his eyes is a test in futility; the pain little spots of exploding light speckling his surroundings.

Olivia exclaims somewhere behind him and shouts his name as hands grip his jacket and spins him into the cold brick of the building and slamming him hard against it. He feels the whoosh in his chest as the air is forced out of his lungs.

"Welcome home, Bishop," a voice cackles low in his ear and Peter's pain turns instinctually into fear. He reacts without thinking, clenching his hands into tight fists beside his head.

He pushes against the wall as adrenaline fuels him, forcing his eyes open as he pivots to throw a punch at the man holding him, connecting with a wet thud to the side of his jaw. He heaves a foot and kicks, the gunman losing his balance and slipping backward on the ground, freeing Peter.

He spins on his heel to search for Olivia, finding her as she throws an uppercut to the dark-haired guy who's got a hold of her. Peter feels a surge of pride watching as the man's head whips back, but it's short-lived. She doesn't stand a chance: the guy's size dwarfs her and he's cocking an arm back when Peter breaks into a sprint and wraps his arms around him; his momentum propelling him against the concrete of the sidewalk and away from Olivia.

"Get the hell out of here," He shouts as he struggles with the massive weight of the guy beneath him. She whirls in the other direction, pulling her cell phone out of her coat as she's sprinting, but the two men from the bar have caught up to them; the big one stepping from around the corner and Olivia notices a second too late.

She bounces off him with a grunt, he grabs the front of her shirt and clamps a hand over her mouth—her phone slips and lands on the sidewalk, Peter prays she got the call out before the second guy stomps on it, crunching it against the concrete.

"Not so fast there, sweetheart," he chuckles as he leans close to Olivia's face as she struggles against him. The other man watches with a sickening bemused expression, engraging Peter and he's up and running toward her in an instant, but he's stopped in his tracks when someone tackles him from behind, knocking him against the ground with a thud and he tastes blood.

He tries to call out to her, but he can only spit blood, trying to shove the arms that are pinning him down. He's flipped onto his back gruffly, and his attention is focused intently on the barrel of the gun that's pointed at his face and he stops; raising his arms in surrender. The man holding it is greasy and dark-haired; his foot pressing hard on Peter's chest as he chuckles like a weasel. Peter remembers the last he saw him it took two weeks for his ribs to heal.

"Nice to see you again, Bishop." The gun is pressing hard against his temple, adding to the excruciating pounding from his broken nose.

"Hey there, Tony—didn't notice you there." Peter deadpans, sparing a glance above him to check for Olivia. She's close; the big guy wrenching her arm behind her and clamping a hand over her mouth, but she was alive, for now.

Tony flicks his head and Peter is jerked up by the very sour looking guy he punched earlier; he feels a little smug at the red imprint of his knuckles on his face even as he's being shoved back into the wall and patted down angrily.

"Easy boys," Peter warns; his voice dark and dangerous. His mind is whirling furiously, leveraging the probability of his chances of surviving if he made a swipe at the gun Tony had fixed on him: the way Tony's finger twitched around the trigger told him it was a poor bet. He stayed pinned against the wall and started figuring out a new plan.

"Aren't you going to introduce us?" Tony asks airily, like they were old friends running into each other at the supermarket. Peter's blood boils as Tony makes his way over to Olivia—keeping his gun pointed at Peter as he gives her the once over. Olivia's eyes are hard and cold, the rest of her face obscured by the massive paw clamped over her mouth, smothering her nose and forcing her breath to come out in shallow little whistles.

"What's your name, love?" Tony asks. Olivia rebukes with a nasty stare and Tony cocks his head as he looks at her, muttering a mild, "Marcus, see if you can get pussycat here to answer " and the guy holding her arm twists it, muffling her scream as he bends it at an awful angel and Peter's pushing against the arms holding him, rage and disgust bubbling through.

"Go to hell!" Peter yells, heaving himself away from the wall and slapping away the arms holding him. "She's just some piece of tail I was trying to score at the bar. She's nobody." His face feels hot and he's almost sure he could breathe fire at the moment.

Tony has the gun aimed at his chest again, but Olivia's screaming stops—she sags against Marcus and Peter's brow is furrowed low on his forehead, he's hunched over and murderous; trapped by the gun pointed at him.

Tony scratches the barrel of the gun against his temple, eyes shooting between Olivia and Peter, trying to piece together their connection. He focuses back to Olivia, his face painted between forced regret and amusement as he leans too close to her, running the barrel around her face delicately and watching Peter with a quirked eyebrow when he shoves it to the underside of her chin, pushing her head backward. Peter takes a heavy unintended step in their direction, and it was all the clarification Tony needed.

"What's the name, love? Please don't make my associate snap your goddamned arm off this time." The hand is removed from her mouth and she spats out, "Olivia."

"You have a last name, Olivia?" Tony rolls her name around on his tongue as he continues to wind the gun around her face. Peter's back is rigid; his hands sitting roughly on his hips as he bores his sight onto Olivia, praying she knows where this is going. He's practically shouting, _You're not a cop! _so loud in his mind that he's given himself a new wave of nauseating pain.

Olivia's eyes dart to Peter briefly before back to staring at the man holding the gun below her left ear.

"It's Scott. Olivia Scott."

Peter balks for a moment. Something about the fact she uses her dead ex-lover's surname as her cover bothers him more than he'd care to deal with at the moment. But he dismisses it—focusing on his breathing instead, she was playing along.

"And what do you do, Olivia Scott?" Tonys asks, leaning low to her face.

Olivia smiles grimly, her lip twitching like it had in the bar. "I work at the Container Store."

Tony leans and flashes a wicked smile at Peter, pulling wrapping his hands around Olivia's shoulder in a seemingly friendly way; but it was much more menacing the way he glared at Peter. He cocks the gun and shoves it hard against the side of her face, his eyes never leaving Peter's face.

"C'mon Tony—fuck yourself!" Peter's anger is rising again, running his hands through his hair gruffly to keep him from losing it. Tony pulls the gun away from Olivia's face and strides back to where he was standing, and Peter breathes a little easier—up until the point Tony shoves the gun against the bridge of his nose. Peter fears his head might split open from the pain; he hears himself yelling, but it sounds distant and foreign. His eyes slam shut against the pain and the laughing continues around him.

Through the haze and darkness, he hears Tony directing the others: "Take 'em both," and he barely has time to register the implication of the words before the butt of the gun connects with the back of his skull, turning the barely contained fire into a raging inferno. Peter hears Olivia calling out to him, but he's unable to respond; his eyes are rolling back and he loses himself once again to the darkness.


	4. Chapter 4

"Peter,"

He's somewhere between darkness and light; pain and obliteration. He wants to shy away from the nauseating thudding of the pain and move willingly into the darkness—at least there he was numb to the throbbing chasm of hurt.

He's in his bedroom as a little boy. Walter leans over him in the darkness, but he knows he was foreign; an imposter and not his father. Walter is looking at him like he remembering something very painful, when he opens his mouth to speak, his voice is all wrong:

"Peter, wake up."

But he is awake, isn't he?

The pain creeps in around the edges, casting the room in darkness, and suddenly Peter is terrified. He reaches out for his father, touching nothing as his father has vanished. Heart thumping in his ears the pain is licking at his ears and pulling on his pajama's; his favorite blue flannel ones that his mother got for him for Christmas.

"Daddy?"

Something taps his forehead and he jerks awake; an arm instinctually throwing off whatever was touching him and the pain returns in full force and matching him retch. The pain is overwhelming—hot and angry inside his skull and he tries to catch his breath, forcing himself to focus on the imminent threat surrounding him.

He sees Olivia's face: eyes wide and anxious, her arms skyward like she's being held up in a campy western movie. She waits silently for Peter to regain his composure. He fingers trace their way along his hairline, sitting up with help from Olivia to gingerly touch the goose egg that's raised on the back of his head. The pain spikes when he touches it and he hisses.

"Where are we?" He whispers, the mere task of talking taxing. It takes several moments for him to get his bearings enough to take in his surroundings, eyes darting around the dark room and he has the feeling he knows where he is.

"I was hoping you'd be able to tell me." She answers; her voice low and serious.

There's a bare florescent light overhead that flickers as it hums its presence. He braces a hand behind him to scoot up into a sitting position and he's coherent enough to get a good look at Olivia:

Her hair is falling over her shoulders in wild tendrils; her face partially obscured in shadow, she twists her face away when she realizes he's looking at her hiding it further in darkness. He reaches out to push the hair aside and he feels sick without the aid of his head trauma. The side of her face is one angry bruise, starting below her cheek and creeping up into her hairline. There are little scratches dotting the landscape of her face and the revulsion makes Peter's fingers shake as he turns her over.

"Jesus," he chokes, and she swipes his hand away, instead tracing the back of his head to inspect the damage there. Her fingers skim through his hair and she looks everywhere but at him.

"I'm fine," she whispers, smoothing her fingers across the rest of his scalp. Peter knows she won't share further and drops it, letting her have her way. His eyes never leave her face though, watching her brow furrow in concentration as she fingers through his hair looking for more damage. Peter can't think of anything helpful to say so he just babbles.

"How long have I been out?" He asks, wincing when she finds another particularly tender spot by his temple. He hears her breathing evenly, her bottom lip disappearing when she bites down on it every time she finds a new bruise or gash.

"Couple of hours," she answers, running her fingers through his hair one more time, smoothing it from his face and he shudders silently when she touches his neck. Clearing his throat, he tries to brace himself enough to stand up. She stands with him, roping her arms under his and pulls him into a standing position. He's wobbly on his feet and he knows he probably has a concussion; but it wasn't the first time and certainly wouldn't be the last. He leans heavily on her until the spinning subsides, wrapping his arm over her shoulder and lets her lead him to the small cot at the end of the room to sit down. The springs squeak under them, sagging under their combined weight.

He touches his nose, feeling the swollen tissue and he pinches the bridge to inspect the damage. He feels her eyes drilling into him, but he doesn't have the strength the answer the questions she wants to ask.

"How bad is it?" He jokes, raising his face so she can see his broken nose. But her face is grave, her eyes searching his without humor.

"What are we into?" her voice is flat.

Peter wets his lips, but doesn't say anything. Where to start?

So he just sits, letting the silence fill the small room around them like poison. He knows it's unfair; that she's scared and pissed and hurt because of him—but he wasn't ready to delve into his past, not yet.

He feels the springs squeal in protest and she's off the bed, pacing around the room with her hands on her hips. The light dances off her face and Peter can see that she's livid. Her jaw working around and it looks like she could spit nails.

"Are they going to kill us?"

It's a loaded question. They won't kill him—at least not yet anyway. But thinking about her puts a knot in his stomach. He lies:

"No," he starts, but it's a second too late and she cuts him off with a wave. She's scrubbing her face with her hand and wraps it around to massage her neck, stomping around nervously.

"'Livia," he says, his voice low and even, but she's not slowing down. Her pacing his making his head whirl, trying to following her with his eyes makes his brain hurt.

"So, let me get this straight," she waves an arm around and he feels like he's being interrogated, rubbing the palms of his hands against his sockets to try to sooth the pounding.

"You know them, they obviously know who you are… they can't know who I am, I have a feeling we're going to be found in pieces by the highway, if we're found at all" Peter grimaces at her picture but doesn't interrupt, "and you're not going to tell me what that hell we're up against." She stands heavily on a hip in front of him and Peter's glad she's finally stopped pacing like a cage lion.

"We need to figure out how to get out of here," Peter starts, dancing carefully around what he wanted to avoid.

Olivia opens her arms wide and exasperated; filling the already small room with her space. "There is no way out. I've checked. My cell phone is broken, they have yours." She's back to pacing, Peter springs off the bed, albeit a bit unsteadily, to grip her shoulders to keep her feet planted.

"Olivia," he says, his voice rising, fighting to keep a calm exterior and forcing her to look at him. "We will get out of this." He means it to soothe ;she takes it as placation.

"What do they want?" She whispers, her face hard. Peter takes a breath, letting it push through his nostrils and he decided that she deserved to hear the truth. At least a little bit of it.

"Something I can't give them." He states flatly.

This stops her briefly, searching his eyes before nodded quick little nods, pursing her lips in and momentarily giving in. The room is swimming, and he regrets standing at all, staggering on his feet and into her. She grabs him before he buckles, pulling his heavy wait back to the cot and easing him down.

"You've got a concussion." She states once he's back in a seating position. Blood is pounding in his ears and he wonders if it's a bad sign that he thinks it sounds remarkably like the ocean. He tries to shake his head, to reassure, but the even thinking about attempting it seems impossible. Instead he leans back and closes his eyes against the coolness of the wall, easing his skull against the bricks. He feels her fingers against his cheek, but he can't open his eyes.

"You shouldn't sleep," she says beside him, her voice seems distant even though she's sitting right next to him.

"I'm fine," he mumbles, throwing her earlier statement back at her. He feels heavy; soggy, his tongue made of thick mud. It felt so nice to just close his eyes and let himself slip if even for a moment…

"Hey," two quick taps to the side of his face and he's pulled back from the watery depths of sleep.

He wants to be irritated; but there's a clicking across the room and he's back on full alert, eyes squinting to focus on the bolt on the door as it unlocks with a heavy thunk. Olivia's already standing as he braces a hand over his eyes to the sudden flash of light pouring into the small room.

They could only make out the thick outlines through the spilt light of three figures filling the room, leaving them silhouetted against the darkness; faceless and sinister shadows.

But Peter doesn't need to see their faces; he already knows who they are.


	5. Chapter 5

The fact that he wasn't scared anymore told him that he was certain they were going to die. But they wouldn't be found in little pieces at the side of some highway like Olivia predicted; they weren't going to be found at all. They'd simply disappear and there might be a search for them, _Olivia was FBI after all, _but they would be nothing more than some cold case that Broyles would have filed away somewhere.

Walter would probably never give up looking, but without Peter he would simply be reduced to nothing more than incoherent conspiracy theories and shouting up at the sky with clenched fist.

Thinking of Walter makes his blood run just a little colder; they'd probably try to send him back to St. Claire's. Maybe Broyles would pull some strings to keep him out.

He knew they were going to die because they wanted something from him that he was unwilling to produce; the worst part of it was he was going to take Olivia with him, and that made him almost want to change his mind. Almost.

But his mind is set and he hopes that he'll be strong enough to saddle the consequences of that decision.

The room fills with light; harsh and overwhelming as it filters through the door and into the room. He's off his feet and sidestepping Olivia to pull her behind him, gripping her wrist wholly for the sole reason that he'll know where she is.

"Bishop," he hears from one of the shadowed heads. Tony's voice is light and boisterous but with the undercurrent of menace as his voice carries across the room. He steps into the light with wide arms but the smile that's plastered never reaches his eyes and Peter is grinding hard on his teeth to keep from replying. Tony strides over to wrap him in a hug, thunking him twice on the back like old friends. Peter freezes and keeps his eyes fixed on the two men blocking the door holding guns like cowboys as Tony chuckles in his face.

"Sorry for my rudeness earlier, but you're a hard man to find," he says, keeping one hand fixed on Peter's shoulder as he wags a finger in his face like chastising a child. Peter keeps a firm hold on Olivia's wrist, he feels her flexing her hand because it's too hard, but he can't help but squeeze tightly like he was tethering her to earth.

He's expected to say something, to engage with Tony's antics but he refuses; he'd be damned if he's toyed with. The forced smile fades from Tony's face when he realizes that Peter wasn't going to play along. He sighs heavily, looking from Peter to Olivia and the sneer slowly returns. He releases Peter with an exasperated sigh, his eyes fixed on Olivia as he steps toward her.

Peter takes a quick step to block him.

Tony laughs; a hard, high chuckle that covers Peter's face in spittle. Peter feels Olivia shift behind him; watching the unspoken exchange between the two men without commenting. Peter stiffens, _fuck._

"You have three days, Bishop. Eddie's gonna be here and he's not one to disappoint." Tony's gaze is fixed on Olivia but he's talking to Peter. His eye skims back and finds mutiny in Peter's face, bringing the smile back to his lips.

"And what happens when he gets what he wants? You're just going to what? Let us go strolling out of here?" Peter replies, his anger quickening.

Tony chuckles as he stuffs his hands into his pockets, walking the short distance around the room, appraising it with bemused scrutiny.

"That all depends on you," Tony says, he's staring intently on a crack on the wall like it's something interesting. "You've caused quite a bit of trouble for me in your absence, and I think you're going to give me exactly what I want and then some." He never raises his voice, but the threat isn't missed.

He's back in Peter's face, so close that Peter can smell what he last ate.

"Isn't that right, love?" Tony's stares at Peter, but he speaks to Olivia.

The death grip on Olivia gets a little tighter and Peter can almost hear the bones grinding together as he squeezes.

Tony peeks over Peter's shoulder to grin appraisingly at her, Olivia takes a step toward him and although Peter won't shift his gaze, he knows she's staring daggers at him.

"Go to hell," her voice low but dangerous. Tony laughs loudly, thunking his hand back down on Peter's shoulder appreciatively.

"Got a live one here, I like that." Eyes shift back over Olivia over Peter's shoulder and Peter can feel what's coming. Tony's lips are practically smacking. He leans close to Peter's ear under the guise of privacy, but his voice is loud enough to carry.

"Well, you know me," Peter says through clenched teeth, his face tight.

Tony flicks his head back to the men that Peter had forgotten about looks at Peter when he says, "let's have some fun, boys" and they're stalking toward them before Peter can think clearly. He's got Tony by the collar, his hands digging deep into the fibers of his shirt as he hisses into his face.

"You can have her when you pull her from my cold, dead fingers." Peter threatens and that wipes the smirks clean off Tony's face. In an instant the men ascend, and chaos unfolds around them.

Peter's got hands pulling him away from the cowering weasel and he reaches blindly out for Olivia but she's already being ripped out of the corner by her hair by the other one. Someone must have hit the bulb overhead because the light is dancing furiously around the room, and Peter's having a hard time in the chaos keeping a firm grip on what's happening as he's wrestling to keep the gun from staying square on his chest.

He hears a "Gah!" from his left and through the arms he sees the big guy that has Olivia go down, gripping his groin and she's hurdling over him to where Peter is and pressing both fists together, slams the guy on Peter behind his neck and he buckles, firing a shot dangerously close to her face as he goes down.

Peter feels dizzy as the room spins from the swinging light; Olivia reaches out for him, gripping his hand in her own and is dragging him to the opened door. He's having a hard time seeing it clearly as it jumps in and out of focus and he squeezes he eyes to beg them to keep the door in one spot.

They get two feet when Peter feels himself pulled backwards, Olivia stares over his shoulder and he slips out of her grip as he's falling with a nauseating crack when his knees connect with the concrete floor.

He tries to get back up but he feels soggy, like he's trying to slosh through water and when he feels the cold of the barrel against the back of his neck he stops trying to move altogether. He looks up in hopes that she made it through the door, but she's still a foot in front of him, arms raised and looking terrified.

"Another step love, and he's dead." Tony's voice is high and livid; Peter looks to Olivia and she's slowly moving closer to where they both are but she's bathed in squiggly lines and Peter's afraid he's dangerously close to blacking out again.

"Good," Tony's breath is calming down as he regains control of the situation, and Peter can hear the two men pick themselves up off the floor behind him.

"Container Store, eh?" Tony asks her, the taunting sneer bouncing off the insides of Peter's skull. Olivia shrugs a shoulder, a grimace lining the delicate features of her face. He grabs the back of Peter's shirt and forces him to stand, the vibrating and is making his ears buzz as blood rushes back into his head with alarming speed.

The men saddle past him, one of the them knocking a shoulder into his back as they pass to Olivia. Peter opens his mouth to say something and he hears the distinct _click _as Tony pulls the hammer back on the gun and the words die; he's flexing his jaw again, looking to Olivia with furious eyes as the two men grab her by the elbows to lead her to the door.

He wants her to fight back, to do anything but just walk casually with them, her chin tilted over her shoulder as she stares at Peter with a small understanding smile. Air is hard to come by and Peter's almost panting and his fists are curled but he's useless to her.

Tony leans close to his ear, watching Olivia go and whispers, "We're going to have some fun with her while you're deciding." Peter stomach drops.

"Why don't you go fuck yourself." The low hostility in Peter's voice is terrifying.

Tony doesn't say anything, he keeps his gun fixed on Peter as he follows Olivia through the door, the darkness obscuring his face to Peter. Peter thinks he looks almost frightened without the presence of the other men in the room.

"And Tony?" Peter adds, feeling his back tense as he tries to control his voice.

Tony doesn't respond but he stops, listening.

"Anything happens to her, and you're a dead man."

Peter thinks he sees the gun quiver for just a moment, but it could have been the darkness playing tricks or his concussion blurring his vision. Regardless, the door shuts with a click and he's left alone in darkness.


	6. Chapter 6

Having Olivia gone was far worse than the raging inferno exploding angrily inside his head.

Images flickered through his consciousness in rapid succession: pictures of Olivia and the terrible things that could be happening to her, the smell of whisky on her breath, the way she looked at him in the bar..."Olivia!" He calls, pounding his fist against the door for the hundredth time that hour, but if they could hear him, they didn't come.

"Olivia!" He yells again in raising panic and frustration, his head still being attacked by jackhammers as they pound mercilessly against the inside of his skull. He doesn't know how long it's been as he tears around the small room, desperate for a way out.

He wishes he never came back to Boston; that Olivia never tracked him down in Bagdad to save her jerk-off boyfriend. It would only be so long before he was found and he was in too deep to ever be safe, to be normal. _Christ if Tess had found him, it was only a matter of time…_

He takes another lap around the room, digging his fingers into his hair and attempting to form rational thoughts. The pain was blinding but it had nothing on the dread filling his chest in icy regret and fear for his friend on the other side of the door.

He wouldn't even let himself think of the worst; he pushed it down and forced himself to concentrate on what he could control. But there was no answers he could see and that almost makes him come unglued. In frustration, he launches a kick at the door, heaving all his weight and feeling the relief as the pain shoots through his leg and he concentrates on that for a while. The heavy clank of his foot connecting with the door reverberates in the room and soon his head is spinning, but he welcomes it, leaning into it as he continues to kick. It soon becomes a rhythm, just like a melody: fractions of beats and measures and he can almost see the notes in his foresight setting words to music: _Olivia, Olivia, Olivia…_

He's sure he has serious brain damage.

Soon he's exhausted; the spinning unmanageable and he collapses into the wall, his forehead white hot against the door and he buckles; crumbling on the floor.

He isn't t sure how long he sat there, concentrating on the memory of her face from the bar: light and friendly; laughing haughtily as he shows her one of his insipid card tricks. He remembers achingly of her smell and how much he wanted to see how she tasted. . .

He hears the door unlatch and he scurries to his feet, his stomach in his throat while he waits for the door to swing open, ready to charge into the flooding light to find her.

There's only a split second that the door's opened that a figure is crashing through it, and he realizes quickly that the outline isn't attacking but being shoved in, crumpling.

Olivia's figure spills into the light and Peter makes two quick steps to grab her as she teeters forward, grabbing her around the middle and catching her before she bashes her face against the concrete, eyes closed and limp-limbed. Peter falls with her, crunching on his already sore knees and supporting her dead weight. Blood pours from her nose and her already bruised face is now speckled in blacks and blues.

"Olivia," he calls, tapping the side of her broken face, but she doesn't move.

He looks to the door and sees the hovering figures in an angry red haze: he rolls Olivia to the concrete and stands to sprint at the door, but the door swings shut before he reaches it and he pounds on it furiously, screaming every expletive and invective in every language he knows and his knuckles are bloody before he can control his anger, his breath heaving in his chest. He continues to stare daggers at the door until he hears her mumble something behind him before he stops.

She's shifting on the floor, mumbling incoherent fragments of sentences as Peter slides back down over her frame, lifting her head gently and pressing his ear against her chin as he tries to make out the words.

"Olivia," he whispers softly, feeling a surge of anger wash back over him as he fully takes in her face, feeling the revulsion as he traces his thumbs around her chin to the bruising littering around her neck.

"God, Olivia…" his voice cracks on the last syllable of her name, unable to fully get it out. Her eyes flutter open, hazy and bloodshot and Peter let out the breath he didn't realize he was holding.

"Peter?" she mumbles, her eyes unfocused. She shifts forward, gripping Peter to pull herself upright. Peter shifts with her, terrified and desperate to know exactly what happened to her. He pulls her to her feet, wrapping an arm around his neck to shuffle her over to the cot to sit her down, dipping between her knees to sit back on his haunches to look her over.

"What did they do?" he asks with a surprising steady voice as he peels away her jacket to look further down her neck and chest. She winces when she moves with him, shifting forward to help shed the leather of her jacket.

"I'm fine, Peter." She answers cryptically; still half-mumbling as she tries to shake herself out of the daze she's in. Peter busies himself with turning her arms over, pushing up the material of her shirt and finds with new pings of disgust the wild array of bruising that follows the trails of her skin.

"Jesus, Olivia," he blurts, abandoning her arms to pull the skin under her eyes with his thumbs, assessing her pupils to see if they're dilated. She shoves him away; twisting her face from his and wiping the blood from under her nose with the back of her hand.

"Are you ever anything than goddamned _fine_" he accuses, his voice raising more than he intends—feeling irrationally angry at her. She's got her hand cupped over her mouth and he instantly regrets it.

"Olivia," he answers as sort of an apology, he lingers his hands on her thighs, feeling monstrous but unable to shake the burning unknown that he doesn't want to truly know the answer to. He scrubs at his face, his breathing hitching as he gathers his voice.

"Did they…" he trails off suggestively, unable to look at her, instead finding a spot on her denim to pick at and feeling hot and nauseous.

"They're going to kill you." She blurts, soft but serious—Peter doesn't know if it assuages the tremors of guilt or makes it worse that she's obviously avoiding his unfinished question. But he finds her face anyway, looking for hints or clues that would reveal the worst. She stares openly at him, still partially hidden by her hand.

Peter's voice is shaken; he doesn't trust himself not to speak in complete sentences. He knows Tony, know men like Tony and the lengths they'd go to get someone like him to break. In the back of his mind he fears the worst—in the back of his mind they're already dead men.

"Olivia—please," he begs quietly, forcing her to meet his gaze, rolling onto his battered knees to close any space between them, blocking the light and hiding her in shadows as he's cupping her face gently to look at him.

She diverts her eyes, looking sidelong as her face crumples, but she's shaking her head between his palms and biting her lips when she whispers a soft "No. Not that." She finds Peter's face and he lets out a ragged breath, dropping his forehead to meet hers and just feeling the proximity and texture of her.

"I'm so sorry," he murmurs against her forehead, brushing his lips against the bruised skin into a feather light kiss. He feels her slide her hands over his, pulling up her face to find his again.

"They're going to kill you." She repeats, terror coating her eyes and she's gripping his shirt through his jacket like she's trying to make him understand the severity of his own situation. There's a switch that flips in his chest and he silences her with a dipped head to brush his lips against hers. He can't explain even to himself why he does it, but the way she's sitting there unconcerned about the bruises and the fact she'll probably die with him makes him bold and the concussion makes him hasty.

"I'm not going to die," he mumbles against her lips, running his hands from her cheeks to her neck, keeping them there to feel her solid under his fingers. She shakes her head infinitesimally, not returning the pressure of his lips but not pulling away either and he's worries he's frightened her, _after everything she's been through,_ he chides himself but he can't stop himself from repeating the words over and over again against her mouth like a mantra between kisses.

He doesn't expect her to return his kisses, but right now he needs her proximity, so he's thrown off when she finally returns the pressure, her lips matching the shape of his and increasing the pressure from comforting to something more.

His breath is coming out in soft pants, feeling her hands uncurl from around his shirt to drop to his legs, running her nails down his leg and Peter feels close to criminal at how much he's turned on. He slides his arms around her to pull her flush against him, feeling dizzy and lightheaded as she opens her mouth to allow his tongue access and she's getting aggressive with her fingers as she dances around the denim of his jeans.

But it's too much, the way she's raking her nails, and the way she's warring with his tongue with hers and he knows he's got to pull away, but with strenuous effort. He nuzzles his nose gently against the bridge of hers, listening to her heavy breathing against his ear.

She drops her head to his shoulder, letting him fold her into a hug and playing nervously with her hair.

"Sorry," she mumbles into his shoulder, and he can almost feel the heat from her face as it flushes through his jacket.

He pulls away to scrutinize her face, "don't be," he starts, cupping her face again, "I just can't do that," stumbling on an explanation because he _really wants to,_ "not to you, not now." His throat is dry but she nods but her eyes bearing into him with intensity.

"How's your head?" She asks offhand, skimming her fingers over his forehead and Peter is finally brought back to the pounding he remembered from before.

"Probably a concussion, nothing new." He tries to joke, but the concern is etched all over her features again.

"You know you can't sleep with a concussion. You're going to have to stay awake." She states matter of factly.

Peter tweaks an eyebrow, a grin flashing across his face in mild surprise. "What do you have in mind?" he asks wryly, feeling goose bumps tingling hi neck.

Olivia returns his grin, hers lopsided on her face and he's suddenly overwhelmed to kiss her again.


	7. Chapter 7

Olivia's coiled up on the cot with her legs pulled up to her chest as Peter's sits fanned out on the floor in front of her, his head pushed up against the mattress and his arms shoved up under his armpits for warmth. He flits in and out of consciousness, the pounding of his head leveling into a dull pain but the urge for sleep starting to become overwhelming.

He closes his eyes for a moment and lets himself sink into the warmth of sleep. He's awoken again quickly with the springing sound of the mattress, Olivia tossing her legs over the side and the movement jarring him awake. She's asked him something he couldn't make out.

"Hmmm?" the noise is throaty; raw from sleep.

More coiled springs recoiling as she shifts back to her position: legs up, arms wrapping around them.

"I asked how old you were when you lost your virginity." She says caustically and Peter has to squint to make sure he put the words in the right order.

"That's your question?" he replies, indignant. For the past several hours they've been passing the time playing "truth or dare" with tedious formality for the sake of keeping him awake:

_What was the name of your first pet?_

_What's your favorite pizza topping? _

_Favorite memory as a kid?_

They had been generic and good natured—never really trespassing into anything private. He rolls his head back to look at her, the small crinkle next to her lip told him she's messing with him and he's not quite sure how to respond.

"That's my question, fall asleep again and the next one'll be worse." She says with a serious face, baiting him. Peter sighs, feeling the pinpricks of uneasiness wash over him like a blanket. He never was comfortable discussing himself in any sort of depth. Against his better judgment, he decides on honesty.

"Fifteen." He answers, feeling his head dip as Olivia moves behind him, rolling forward and planting her hands on either side of her, shocked.

"Fifteen?" Her voice high and surprised, the way she inflects the end of the word makes him both annoyed and half-embarrassed. He places an elbow on the bed, leveraging his hand against his head as he watches her amused face.

"_How old were you_?" He returns, feeling smug when she drops her chin to her chest, her cheeks burning a brilliant red even under the dull light above them. She recovers quickly, but the flush still stains her cheeks when she fires back, "You first." She's grinning openly now, and it is Peter's turn to feel the heat in his face. He rolls his eyes, locating the information and retrieving it sluggishly.

"Her name was Molly. She was a junior in high school when I was in eighth grade." He registers her impressed face with a chuckle. "I guess you could say I have always been very … persuasive."He leaves openly. Olivia covers her lips with a touch of her fingers, trying to conceal the grin that's hiding there. Peter flashes back to the bar, like she hates to admit that she's smiling.

"Ok," he chuckles, "your turn." He twists around to watch her face and the bruises stand out like little flags on her skin, reminding him of what he's caused and it breaks. He turns away again, hoping she doesn't notice his look of revulsion.

"Actually…" she says, and against his better judgment he turns around to face her, his eyebrows shooting skyward.

"No." He exclaims, leaning up on his elbow.

Within seconds she's rolling her eyes and back to grinning; Peter should have known better. He rubs his eyes in exasperation. He's not expecting her to answer truthfully, not really. He's surprised when she continues.

"I was seventeen, right before I went into the military." She's toying with her fingernails. Peter wonders if her sudden onslaught of honesty had to do with their certain death or if she's letting her defenses down with him. Either way he listens eagerly, waiting for her to continue.

"High school boyfriend?" He prods, keeping the conversation light so she doesn't backtrack, because for some reason he's desperate to know. She shrugs a little, shaking her head. "No, not at all." She's throwing her hair back and struggling for words. "He was nobody...I just wanted to, you know..." she's a brilliant red.

"…Get laid?" he supplies and it's his turn to feel hot.

She scrunches up her face at the description, but doesn't argue.

He cocks his head gingerly to face her as she slides her legs down next to him. He can feel the heat from radiating, like she had a temperature. He runs his hands up the length of her leg: shin to thigh, soft and feather-light across the denim. She's solid beneath his fingers, and he's thankful for the tether.

"I'm sorry about all this." He says flatly, resting his head against her thigh. He wants so much to just lose himself in the scraps of happiness that were slipping through his fingers. He hears her sigh: heavy and exhausted, and he wants to tell her to sleep, but he knew she'd say no if he asked.

She's shifting under his fingers, detangling and plopping down to occupy herself next to him. Her face is serious as she tucks a lock of hair behind her ear.

"Why won't you tell me?" She asks gently; prying but not demanding.

Peter sighs, wishing he could ignore her, to tell her it was none of her business and leave it at that. But the fact she was in this as deep as he was made him feel guilty at his own selfishness.

He stares at his hands, cracked and bloodied from fighting and pounding, unable to look at her as he speaks.

"I'm not proud of who I was before. When you found me—" his voice is dangerously close to betraying him, "—I was a conman; a terrible man." He feels her drill holes in him, but he won't bring himself to look at her.

"I don't want you to know me _like that_." He stumbles. She pulls his hands in her own, forcing him to find her in the dull light.

"Peter," she tries his name cautiously, chewing on her lip and Peter wishes she'd just leave it alone.

"I'm not a good person," he shakes his head when she tries to interrupt. She falls silent but doesn't relinquish her hold on his hands between hers. "And because of what I've done, if I give them what they want, people will die. A lot of people." He chokes at the end, the last word stuck thick in his throat.

She shifts into a squatting position to situate herself in front of him, not asking aloud but in her stare, eyebrows pulled together.

Peter hates honesty. He hates it more that he can't lie to her, though. He steadies his breath, pulling his hands out of her little ones to shift his legs up toward his chest and lays them over his knees, blocking her out and trying to find the best of out the terrible things she wants him to admit.

He can't, and the words suffocate him into silence.

His head shakes, hiding himself behind his hands to blot out pictures of faces melting; figures screaming and dying because of him…

He thinks he knows how it feels to be Walter's conscious for once.

He's jarred out of the horrifying image when she shifts from her spot on the floor to straddle him, bracing her back against his knees as she takes his face in her hands. His eyes feel blurry and heavy but she's clinging to his face so fiercely it nearly hurts.

"Peter," she says, "you're not a bad person." The look she gives him dares him to defy her; he's too dumbstruck to say anything, his mouth hanging open. "Despite everything, I won't believe that."

Peter can only bring himself to swallow, gulping down air because the sincerity of her words is corrosive: burning his insides turning them into ash. He can't say anything; he doesn't trust himself with her. He doesn't need to; she drops her head toward him, closing the small space between them as she plants a soft kiss on his lips, and her actions scream her meaning into his core, relinquishing him of his guilt, giving him forgiveness.

He opens his mouth to her, welcoming her tongue, wrapping his arms around her waist, in her comfort and her absolution, hidden from the terrible truth. _If she only knew,_ he knows she wouldn't be so forgiving. He's the monster hiding under the bed and she's blindly accepting her fate with his—a fate that he's dreading because her proximity and her mouth are infectious, and for the moment he allows himself to fall freely into the sensation of her.

Olivia laces her fingers into his hair, shifting in his lap to deepen the kiss and in return Peter lets himself pretend that they're not in some makeshift prison, that they're somewhere else, somewhere happy and not days away from death. She pulls her mouth to his jaw, peppering kisses and softly spoken sentiments that he doesn't deserve to hear: _you're not a bad man, you're not a bad man, you're not a bad man… _

He knows he should tell her, that there should be full disclosure to the person straddling you as they wait for torture and execution, but he can't spend the precious hours they have left with her knowing just how wrong she is, because he couldn't fucking take the broken face she was sure to have. He pulls her closer, feeling the rail from the cot pressing hard against his back, and he leans into it, relishing the pain because he deserves it. She's nipping at the sensitive spot behind his ear and he hears himself hissing loudly as he digs his fingers into the soft skin of her thighs.

The small voice in the back of his muggy mind is screaming terrible things at him, reminding him what she already went through because of him and his past, that he was the monster and he was allowing her to think otherwise.

"Olivia," he pants, having difficulty with the mere concept of talking; she covers his mouth with hers and shifts in his lap, grinding against him and the words die unsaid.

_Monster._

He ignores the voice, focusing on her: his hands trailing down her back to rest of her shifting legs; the small sounds she makes when he nips aggressively at her neck and the god damned glorious things she was doing with her nails on his stomach. The buzz of voices in the back of his head doesn't go away, but he ignores it with some success and traces the curve of her neck with his hands. Olivia's eyes open wide on him and she freezes, going ridged in his embrace.

"What?" He gets out, confusion and concerned etching his voice and making it hoarse. She's staring at him like whatever she sees terrifies her and he releases his hold on her, thinking frantically if he said something or did something that hurt her. Her eyes flit around him, taking him in and she pushes away from him with her hands on his chest. He lets her, pulling his hands in so she can backtrack.

_Fuck. _

She gulps loudly, never taking her eyes off him, like she's trying to sort something out. He glances down to see if maybe he's on fire without knowing it.

"Olivia, _what_?" He repeats, his voice rising as he feels little knots of terror in his stomach.

"Peter," she starts—her voice a little too shaky, finally turning away from him and he's zoning in on the four pronged handprint on the side of her neck, temporarily distracted.

"Yeah?" he's almost pleading for her to tell him what in the hell was going on, because the fear in her voice is terrifying and maddening. He finally runs his fingers to grasp her arms because she was going to kill him with her silence.

She locks his eyes with hers at his gentle touch, face dead and her mouth a straight line. He can barely hear her over his own frantic breathing:

"Something's wrong."


	8. Chapter 8

The rating shifts to M here, so beware youngin's!

Sunlight should be pouring in. It should be filling the small room with sentiments of warmth and brightness. Peter's not sure of the time, but he knows it should definitely be daytime by now.

But there are no windows, just the dull flickering florescent light bulb humming an annoying b minor leaving them forever in the limbo between night and day; darkness and light.

Peter really wants to sleep.

The last few hours had been particularly draining. After Olivia's freak out she'd been so stand-offish with him he thought that she was actually coming to terms with the fact that he wasn't going to solve their predicament. Maybe the cortexiphan enabled her to read his mind and learn everything she needed to know about his wrongdoing.

Then again, it made more sense that his concussion was turning him paranoid.

She had finally fallen asleep; sitting upright on the cot, face pressed into the wall as she struggled to stay awake with him. He was glad when she did. He couldn't take the sidelong glances she gave him when she thought he wasn't looking. He knew she was looking for something to confirm whatever her suspicions were.

"_What? What's wrong?" He asked, wildly reaching for her to explain her cryptic utterance. She recoiled from his touch like it burned, and back peddled to put distance between them. He felt cold, naked and exposed._

"_It's nothing," she blurted, but she won't stop looking at him like he's some kind of freak—a monster. The anger washed over him like fire. Something's changed and he needs to know if it's as bad as he can imagine._

"_Next you're gonna tell me you're 'fine'" he fired back, clenching and unclenching his jaw as she squared off with him; shoulders back arms crossed—livid._

"_Because I'm the only one keeping secrets," She spat, and Peter's throat goes dry. He can't face her anymore so he turned to shield himself from her gaze. Her voice is soft as she approached could feel her breath on his neck. _

"_Peter…" she started but he spins on her, cutting her off._

"_Olivia, back off." He warned with an outstretched hand, and in a fury she stomped off to the other side of the room; each of them to their respected secrets. The anger hung in the air like a wall between them. _

_Little was said after the explosion, each keeping to their corners until she finally fell asleep. _

His back is pressed against the wall as he sits against the alternate wall from her. He can't help but look at her. The soft glow of her face as she sleeps, the way her face is perfectly relaxed and calm. She looks uncharacteristically young; unburdened by both their troubles.

Peter's suddenly overwhelmed with guilt again, letting it break over him like a tide. She doesn't deserve this, he thinks, taking in the delicate features of her face and tracing the yellowing bruises with his eyes. It was easier to access their situation without her bearing down on him. It was only a matter of time they would return to the room and when they come back it would be too late.

He rises to close the gap between them, stepping lightly to her sleeping figure and he feels a the fear mutate into something else. It's a warm feeling, like honey and he runs a hand over her face trailing her outline with two fingers. The light flickers behind him as he crouches down between her knees, laying his hands flat on them to shake her gently. Her eyes flutter open, looking alarmed as she takes in her surroundings. She bolts forward, but he grips her knees to keep her planted. The cot squeals in protest.

"Peter, what's wrong?" She gasps, eyes searching for danger.

He silences her with a wave of his hand.

"Olivia," he starts, feeling his heart pick up in his chest, fluttering wildly against his ribs as he tries to piece together the words he wants to say. The fear stays planted but she falls quiet, letting him continue.

Peter sighs, shifting his gaze to his hands. "Years ago, I worked for these men," he began, feeling his mouth go dry like sandpaper.

"I know," she encourages, _but she really doesn't know—she has no idea._

He shakes his head again, talking over her, "When I was twenty-four I thought I was smarter than a lot of people. That because of my fucked up childhood with Walter and my mother's death, I felt like something was owed to me. I gambled and cheated, and ... I was in debt to a lot of very bad people."

He feels Olivia's hands slide lightly on top of his; fingers spread and open atop of his rough hands. He wants to stop, wants to cling desperately to a lie, but something in her face helps pull him along.

"I had two choices: work off my debt or be found in some ditch somewhere. I started working. I figured things out easily and within two years I was making new versions of methamphetamines."

The shock in Olivia's face was startling. He almost stopped, but now that he opened Pandora's Box, he had to explain himself, to put things in context.

"Eventually I figured out a way to manipulate an enzyme into a weapon. They were going to release it as a way to control our competition, to expand their empire. It would have been devastating."

"What was it?" She breathes, trying to control her breathing like she was talking to a suspect. Peter's stomach turns a little: he knew she was finally seeing him in a new light. He closes his eyes, taking a rocky breath before he's able to continue. He feels like he's about to jump off a cliff face first into a bunch of sharp fucking rocks.

"I'll spare you the sticky details, but it does involve annihilating the immune system. The effects are irreversible and highly effective. "People die, horrible horrible deaths. And it could be released to anyone. I couldn't…" he scrubs his face with his hands, feeling his eyes prickle under his fingers.

"I ran." He finds her face again through blurry vision. Her face is still frozen in shock and horror. The truth was out.

"Peter," she starts after a daunting moment.

He can't bring himself to say anything. He's utterly alone. He hides himself behind his hands, arms heavy on the soft denim of her legs.

He shields himself, feeling his chest heave. Unmistakable silent gasps overwhelm the light flicker of wet sound overhead; Peter wishes he could blame the wetness escaping between his fingers on the concussion, being exhausted and emotionally drained—and maybe it was part of it—but the truth was he was ashamed.

He stays there, unmoving and silently shaking for so long he's lost time. He feels gentle fingers prying his hands away, her face ignoring the wetness on his cheeks as she regards his face. She doesn't say anything as she pulls at his hands, raising him from the crouched position onto his knees to make him eye-level with her on the cot.

She's looking for something, pulling her hands up her his face: grazing her fingers across his cheeks, skimming them against his lips, unintentionally he opens them to her, letting out a heady breath against her. He swallows, letting her scrutinize him, tilting her head in one direction and then the other. He's terrified and attentive.

She pulls hard on his face to crush against hers, catching his lips and Peter's mind reels to a screeching halt. Olivia's kiss is so ferocious it was bordering on violent. He tries to mumbles something, but she shakes her head, plunging her tongue into his mouth to silence him.

Something new and strangely feral takes over Peter's reactions: touching her was instinctual, taut like pulled roped. He's no longer cautious, wrapping his arms around her waist to pull her into him, returning her kiss with the same fierce intent. He knows what she's doing. This is only a distraction, a silent acceptance of what they can't release into the world.

She turns her mouth to bite hard on his earlobe and Peter has to squeeze his eyes shut. She's clawing into his hair, opening her knees to pull him closer and he responds with a low hiss and raking fingers down her back. He'd give her anything she asked, _anything_ for sharing this fate with him. Her lips find his again quickly and they're two warring entities; clawing, pulling, jockeying for position. His vision's blocked with everything Olivia: Olivia, Olivia, Olivia.

He's feeling dizzy, pulling away from her mouth to gasp for air and he realized he's stopped breathing. She pushes against his chest, breaking their kiss, but this time she doesn't recoil; she's dragging off the grimy sweater he's wearing and pulling it over his head.

Her breath is hot in his face, her cheeks stained like wine and Peter feels dangerously possessive, raking his fingers up her back, pulling off her jacket with swift arms, wanting to see her, to taste her, to feel her against him. He's moved beyond dizzy to the axis of the world shifting and twirling at an alarming speed around him.

"Olivia," he breathes against her neck; it was too much too quickly for him and he's reeling like he's on a roller coaster. He's suddenly scared shitless at where this is headed because if they continue it means it really was over for them.

"Hey," he pulls back from her, his head in a whirlwind. She scrunches her forehead together, her lips still stuck in the pucker that makes her so fucking adorable. Her hands are tangled up in his shirt, the front of his shirt half unbuttoned.

"Listen," she talks over him, her voice low and husky. "We're going to get out of this. We're going to find a way out. But I don't want to talk about it right now." She finishes, and Peter's sure she's going to pull away, but she does the opposite: she leans back in and molds herself against his mouth, quickly finishing the job on the buttons of his shirt.

It takes a few seconds to catch up with her, to put message to action, but she's reaching for his belt and unfastening it, he's got his go ahead clear as day. The possessive animal in his chest springs to life again, and he buries his hands in her hair; pulling her closer as he sucks on her bottom lip. She unbuttons his jeans roughly and he lets out a grated hiss when she takes him in hand.

"Jesus," he gasps into her mouth, feeling her fingers wrap around him and soon he's rocking into her hand and she slides up his length. Blood is pounding furiously in his head and he wants to tell her how good it feels, how _fucking amazing_ her hands are, but his brain is shut off and he's running off of instinct and pure adrenalin at this point.

She's whispering something in his ear, but it's only white noise, blotted out by the pounding of his skull; his entire being focused on the feelings of her hands on him. She needs to slow down, to give him a second to adjust to her or he was going to finish in her hand like some teenager.

"Olivia," he warns, panting into her mouth and she takes the opportunity to swirl her tongue against his bottom lip, quickening her speed. He's getting dangerously close, feeling his stomach drop and he grabs her wrist, halting her movements and pulling her hand out and pinning it against the wall over her head. He can tell she isn't anywhere as close as he is, so he sucks hard on the space between her shoulder and neck and feels her buck and let out a low curse that he doesn't catch.

He releases her hand and pulls up her shirt with the other to drop his head to bite down on her nipple through her bra, feeling her wrap her fingers into his hair and crush his face against her chest. Trailing a free hand behind her, he feels out the clasp to her bra, and with surprising skill, snaps it loose to hang slack over her skin.

He nudges up her bra with his thumbs, nipping lightly at her nipples; feeling them perk and harden in his mouth. She's making sounds crossed between whimpers and growling and it's insane how much it affects him. He pulls away from her chest to catch her lips again with his, sliding a hand down her stomach to dip beneath the waistband of her jeans. She lets out a harsh moan, and he can infer from the angry pull of her fingers in his hair that she had finally caught up with him.

He flicks open the button on her jeans, pulling her off the cot to slide down the denim enough to give his hand full access. He doesn't bother to take them off completely. He thumbs around her belly button, feeling her stomach quiver from the light touch. He takes the chance to take in her face: eyes slammed shut, her mouth parted; waiting.

"'Livia," he whispers, her eyes are foggy when they open; barely finding him. He needs to hear something from her. He wants to watch her.

"Peter," she breathes, barely above a whisper, "Touch me." The statement ignites him; he dips his fingers beneath the black lace of the underwear and she's so wet he's dizzy again. He slips a finger inside her, hearing her let out a little squeak. He takes his time with her, learning the territory; studying her reactions and the way her eyes roll back when he gets it just right—and soon she's grinding against him, gripping his shoulders as she bites down on her lip to keep from crying out.

Peter steals a look to the door; knowing they could return and this could end at any time—and it turns him on even more. Her heavy breathing fills the room and reverberates off the walls. He leans over her, (a bit awkwardly because her pants are around her knees) wrapping a palm gently over her mouth to muffle the moans she hissing out like a tea kettle. He slips a second finger in her and curls his fingers and she arches, she's close and it's like being close to a bomb about to explode. He drops his face next to hers, nipping her ear, tasting her neck, suckling the fine bruise he caused to her that wasn't one of pain.

She goes rigid under his flattened hand covering her mouth and bites the inside of his palm as he pushes the heel of his other hand in just the right place and she shatters. He pulls far enough back to watch her eyes as she comes violently, rolling them back and shuddering against him.

She's limp against him, her arms lazy against his shoulders and he nuzzles the side of her neck. He withdrawals his hand and helps her slide back into her jeans, not even bothering to button up his own. He's drawn; feeling immensely lethargic and he lets her pull him up to the cot next to her. Her eyes are heavy and he pulls her to his chest, not sure if she'd let him or not, but is glad when she does so without complaint.

He's playing his her hair, running his fingers though the wild array of tendrils and he's pretty sure she's fallen asleep. He keeps a steady eye on the door, wanting to remain in the warmth of the moment, but knowing all too well they were going to come back at some point. He lets her sleep against his shoulder, knowing everything had changed.


	9. Chapter 9

He's alone.

Standing in a darkened field lit only by the eerie silvery glow of moonlight reflecting through the fog that surrounds him. The field is endless, empty and lifeless and still as night.

"Olivia?" He calls out, taking quick steps backward, away from the open land quickly expanding around him and closing in on him all at once. He spins, taking in his surroundings and trying to gage his environment, the fog was so thick now it was close to blotting out his vision. He knew Olivia should be somewhere, and the fact he was alone is making his heart thump against his chest. He calls again for her, his voice resonating over the smoky haze.

There's sound. Soft voices reverberating around him, cackling thunder in the distance. Peter's suddenly terrified. The sounds are voices calling back to him over the landscape but he can't make out the words. He cranes his neck to listen but all he can make out are little murmurs that are tripping over his shoulder, he can pinpoint that whatever they are, they're coming from behind him.

He spins, hoping to find Olivia calling back to him. It's not Olivia. There are distant figures approaching him all clad in white, sallow skin sticking sickly against the dark surroundings. His brow furrows. They're all staggering toward him, arms outstretched and headed straight at him. His pulse picks up, he can make out their faces as they near: the skin on their faces are bubbling; melting and sliding off their skulls like hot wax off a burning candle. They're infected.

He turns to run, they're close enough to see the dead blackness of their eyes and he's stopped in his tracks by Olivia standing behind him. He lets out a little cry of surprise.

"Olivia, thank god. We've gotta get outta here." He says as he grabs at her wrist, _didn't she see the monsters right behind him? _But she's a stone figure, heavy and solid and unmoving. He's watching the figures stalk closer behind them, closing in.

"Move it, Olivia!" He's desperately pulling at her, trying to get her feet unplanted. The figures are so close he could reach out and grab their melting bodies. He's decided if he needs to, he'll toss her over his shoulder and make a break for it before they reach them.

He turns to face her again, feeling the punch to his gut when he sees her: eyes black as coal, lips moving silently as her waxy faces starts to bubble and boil under the surface of the skin.

"No, no, no." he yells, forgetting the approaching figures as he palms her cheeks, feeling the skin soften and melt under his touch, sliding down over his fingers and exposing the white skull beneath it. She's grinning at him even as she dissolves.

He opens his mouth to scream but nothing comes out.


	10. Chapter 10

He's awake. Panting silently and feeling the sweat coat his face, but he's awake. He looks down and sees Olivia solid and still asleep on his chest and he feels the flood of relief wash over him.

It's just a dream. He dares to wrap his arm around her, cradling her head against his chest to rest his chin against her. He knows if she wakes up she'd kill him, but decides it would be worth it to calm his shaky nerves.

Soon she's stirring against him, rolling her head to look up at him with heavy eyes. She must have seen the drawn look on his face because her brow scrunches and she shifts away from him. He isn't quite ready to relinquish his hold on her, but he draws back to let her sit up.

"What's wrong?" she asks as she shakes herself awake.

"Just sore," he lies. There's the awkward silence that hangs between them in beats. He's staring at her without regard to privacy and he knows that soon she'll be uncomfortable if he doesn't look away. He doesn't mean to, but he palms her face, just to make sure it's solid and giving beneath his fingers. She casts him an incredulous look, but lets him squeeze the skin without comment. When he's satisfied, he lets go and works his fingers through his hair. The painful throbbing in his head has relapsed back into the annoying hum, but it's bearable.

"You okay?" she asks uncomfortably as she slides away from him to stretch. He throws away an "_I'm fine," _as he tests out the more tender areas of his arms.

"Olivia," he starts, rubbing the back of his neck. He's not sure what he wants to say so much as wanting to say _something. _

He doesn't get to finish his thought. The door lock creaks upward; he steps protectively in front of Olivia's figure, casting her in shadow behind her. There's creaking from the cot behind him, and he's not surprised that she's standing alongside him.

The door opens and a new flood of light pours in, blinding them both because the brightness is obtrusive in the small space. Peter shields his watering eyes with his hand. Focusing was useless.

"Peter," comes the whining cackle over the fiery light. Instinctually, Peter reaches for Olivia, finding her stomach and pressing a steady hand like he was holding her back. He says nothing.

"Aw, C'mon Peter," he can make out Tony's slight figure entering the room, flanked by two men on either side. It's almost cartoonish the way that the silent men side along Tony's figure. He wonders madly if they stand guard when he needs to take a piss.

"Did you sleep well? How 'bout little Olivia Scott here?" The name brings the grimace back to Peter's face. Tony peaks over Peter's shoulder to address her: "You sleep okay there, love?" He laughs at the murderous look Peter casts, stepping to block him from coming any closer.

"You're pretty protective for a 'piece of tail' Bishop." Tony observes. Peter doesn't even bother to try to explain. There's no point. He knows Tony's more astute than he gives away.

"Try to take her again and you'll be picking your teeth out of the back of your throat." Peter hisses, his lips pulled up tightly into something resembling a smile. Tony weighs this for a moment, sneaking a peak behind his shoulder and, confident of his reinforcements, lets out a roar of laughter.

"We're only having a little bit of fun with pussycat here," he taunts, but he takes little quick steps to put distance from them. "Isn't that right, pussycat? Didn't you have fun?" He flings. Peter feels Olivia's stomach tense under his hand, trying to keep from reacting. The smile on Tony remains. A quick nod behind him and the two thugs stalk toward them and Peter's got Olivia pushed back into the cot with a quick thrust of his hand.

They don't near her though; they grab Peter by the scruff of his shirt and pull him toward door with them. Peter doesn't bother to try to fight back. Olivia's off the cot, coming at them. Peter's in a rather awkward position, being manhandled by the back of his shirt but he doesn't struggle: Tony's got his gun aimed directly at her.

"Move and I'll shoot you in the goddamned leg then him in the head." He hears Tony snarl and she stops. Peter's jerked down, his head pulled over into a hunch, feeling the unmistakable click from the gun that's pushed into the back of his skull. He doesn't say anything, just listens anxiously over his pounding heart for what happens next.

"Very good," coos the voice behind him and the pulling resumes in the same uncomfortable manner to the door. He thinks he hears Olivia say something behind him and he shouts for her to keep her mouth shut, but the blood rushing back to his head makes concentrating difficult.

He's out of the room and the door slams shut behind him, sealing Olivia in—safely for now—and at least he has that.

He's towed up a set of stairs and shoved into an opened room filled with ancient science equipment. There are glass beakers and vials strewn across the counters in a way that reminds him haphazardly of Walter's lab. He recognizes the equipment; he knows what it's there for. He remembers spending much time in this makeshift lab.

He knows foggily where they are. They're in an old dilapidated house that was probably condemned at one point that served as their makeshift meth lab. They're least an hour from Boston in a deserted part of terrain hidden by the brush of the landscape. He's almost giddy from having a handle on his surroundings but he can't remember the complete layout of the house. All they have to do is get out and he was positive he could get them back.

He's already trying to triangulate their escape route back to the main highway.

"We've missed you here, Peter." Tony swings around, the gun stored somewhere out of sight. His arms are crossed over his chest as he struts across the small room. Peter's conscious is pulled to the forefront and his escape plans are put on hold for a moment. The distinct smell of burning rubber clings to the air like he'd never left this room. At least he knows where they are, one problem down.

"Well, I've been a busy guy," he retorts, his arms are getting tired from being raised over his head because the other two guys still have guns. He notices the black eye on Tony that he missed before and can't help but grin.

"Nice shiner there. The little girl too much for you?" He taunts.

Tony's face turns into a scowl. One of the guys behind him shoves him hard from the back into an open chair. Peter's face is still pulling upward despite the wave of muted pain in his head.

"I like 'em feisty." Tony says, leaning over Peter to whisper low enough for him to hear: "She did put up quite the fight… for a while. I think toward the end she rather enjoyed it." Peter's blood ripples in angry tides in his skin. He sinks his fingers into the fibers of the table but is otherwise unresponsive. Satisfied, Tony sits in a chair opposite him, wearing the little grin that makes Peter want to kick his teeth in.

"Now," Tony continues, spreading his fingers flat on the table. "Where have you been the last couple years? We've been concerned."

He doesn't bother to respond. Tony keeps up anyway.

"Afghanistan, Moscow, Iraq, and now back here in Boston... working for the FBI, no less." Tony's ticking the places off on his fingers as Peter's blood runs cold.

He leans across the table at Peter, hitching an elbow out to lean a chin on it lazily.

"Now, I think it's quite the noble aspiration, I really do," Tony presses his fingers against his chest, "but I think that some of my associates may think poorly of your new choice career and certain implications that it may carry."

Peter waits silently to see if he's put together who Olivia is or if he's still in the dark. He feels his palms go sweaty.

"I need that formula. You'd like to keep all your fingers." Tony says. Peter opens his mouth to say something but Tony talks over him, "and your little girlfriend's fingers." Peter's mouth clamps shut. At least Olivia hasn't been made yet.

"What makes you think I even remember how to replicate it?" He bluffs: back straight and his mouth turned down. Tony rolls his eyes.

"Listen, let's cut the shit Bishop. We're going to get that formula," Peter juts forward in a dangerous arc to cut him off. He's makes a split decides to try a new angle.

"—It sounds to me that you need me much more than you'd like to admit. It's because you can't replicate it. You wouldn't need me if you did. And I also know that Big Eddie isn't going to react well to you murdering the only person who has a chance to make it for you."Peter knows it's ballsy. He knows it could get him shot in the face right here. He decides it's worth the gamble if it pays off.

Tony's a statue, and Peter sees it as a good sign. He knows that Tony's rethinking his choices. He can't help but let the little smug grin glue itself to his lips. Tony slides out of his chair and disappears somewhere where Peter can't see him. He holds his breath: ready.

The butt off the gun swings downward, catching the back of his head and his teeth crack. Popcorn kernels of light pop and he's spread out on the table in front of him. It's damn painful, but he won't cry out, instead clamping his mouth shut. Tony's got his gun shoved hard against his temple, his elbow digging into the side of his neck. He's worried he may have pushed him too far. Tony leans low over him, arm pushing into the back of Peter's neck and making the wave of pain spike as his air pipe is trampled shut.

"He'll kill us all." The low whisper is harsh and heated against his neck. Peter can feel the spit dripping from Tony's mouth like raindrops. "I may not be able to kill you Bishop, but I will cut every finger and muscle outta that pretty blonde you've got tucked away back there until you give me exactly what I want, FBI or not."

He's jerked back into the seat and everything is bathed in too bright kaleidoscope lights and he has to squint to keep his focus. When he finds Tony's face again, it's still covered by the deranged mask he's wearing. The world is swimming when he's able to breathe again, and he takes big gulps in without the foresight of shame. The air stings his lungs as he sucks it in.

Tony's pacing around the small room like a man possessed and he remembered it was a preamble to a particularly bad explosion. He's ready for another onslaught.

"Maybe these guys'll like another go at little Olivia back there? What do you say Archer? You want another go?"

Chuckling fills the room from the men that had been up to this point mute, and Peter feels his skin crawl, something vile was clinging to his clothes and sinking into his skin.

"Fine," he lets out in a gruff. The men pay no attention, so he speaks up over them louder than he needs to so that his voice is reverberating off the eggshell walls.

All three men stop and stare and Peter looks down to realize he's left claw marks in the fibers of the wooden table. Shit. He folds them together and rests them close to his chest.

"Pen." Is all he says. Everyone continues to stare. Tony's eyesbrows shoot skyward and Peter's irritated that he has to elaborate.

"You're going to want me to write this down. These are not grocery ingredients, you understand." He says in exasperation. A piece of paper slides out of nowhere and he's scrawling across it at rapid fire, surprised that he remembers it all after blocking it for so long. He tosses it back toward Tony and it floats lightly back to the table. Tony reaches out and swipes it before it lands, a look on his face like he's won the lottery.

"A few concessions," Peter cuts. Tony fists the list but doesn't interrupt.

"You release her now, and when this is finished, I follow. We're squared." He's back to ballsy. He betting that they won't be able to synthesize the formula without him. He's got leverage. Tony is mulling the idea over theatrically, rubbing a finger against the stubble of his chin.

"I like Ms. Olivia," Tony starts, choosing his words with the aught most diligence. "I think we may keep her until I decide otherwise." He's grinning and Peter's spitting fire.

There's a split second between the threat Peter's about to charge and the heel of Tony's foot colliding with the bruised ribs of Peter's chest and he's over backwards in the chair, staring at the ceiling as the whoosh of his lungs hiss in his ears. He rolls to his side just in time for another kick and all his can do is grunt. He feels a sharp _crack_ and an explosion of pain radiations low in his side but he doesn't linger on that for too long because Tony's foot pulls back and swings down toward his face like a pendulum and the only thing Peter can think before it crashes into his face is _at least he didn't use his gun. _


	11. Chapter 11

Thank you to everyone who have been sticking with this story! The reviews are greatly appreciated and more addicting than crack. Once again, I do not own fringe, I just like to play with them.

Off we go!

* * *

He's back in the small room when he wakes; laying face-down on the rough material of the cot and it's strange how comforting the feeling now is.

"How many times you gonna come back unconscious? You're not exactly light." He hears a soft voice above him say. He raises his face off the cot and things are blurry. His face feels like an inflated balloon: full and stuffy and about to pop. He realizes that one of his eyes has swollen shut. He shifts to sit up to touch it and feels the fire spread in his ribs and he gasps.

"You've probably broken a rib." Olivia says nonchalantly as she helps him sit up and lean against the wall. The pain is a good notch above bearable and he presses a flat hand against his side and he almost chokes when the fire swells like a white-hot poker. He can't even get out the expletive he so desperately wants to shout.

She's crouched down below him and is already making work of his pale blue sweater that she tossed aside the night before, tearing it into long strips as he watches.

"Hey," he protests, watching her nimble fingers work the fabric and he suddenly thinks about the other miraculous things her fingers can do and the pain spikes when he takes a sudden intake of breath.

"We need a bandage." She says calmly, but the slight shake of her fingers gives her away. He guesses he isn't surprised that she's not crying over him. Shaking fingers is at least something.

"You have to take it out on my sweater?" He says, his voice husky and low, unable to talk any louder. She lets a small smile escape, pulling one side of her lip up.

"Well," says Olivia, tearing a particularly long piece out of the midsection of material, "I'm not tearing my own shirt and you've got extra." She grins lightly, but even the grin looks dark.

Peter tries to smile, but it comes out more like a grimace on his mangled face. His eyes are closed now, concentrating hard on trying not to breathe.

"You can tear your shirt. I promise I won't look." He teases, but it's halfhearted and thick in his throat. He helps her ease him forward and she's undoing the buttons to his shirt.

"Don't take this the wrong way." She warns and but he doesn't hear the joke as the pain flairs from the movement and he's hisses as she moves his shirt away to reveal the angry purple bruise clustered on his lower ribs. He peeks down and whistles. It's nasty.

She starts to wrap the material around his chest, gingerly as possible but every time her fingers made contact to skin it was a hot poker jabbing at him.

"Tell me," she says, weaving another piece of material around his chest, "have you _ever _won a fight?" she asks and he chokes back a laugh. Breathing was becoming increasing easier the more she wraps material around, taking the weight off his broken rib.

"Never. But it's mostly with girls." He responds. He makes a grunting noise as she ties two pieces of material together into a knot. She lets her fingers linger on his chest for just a moment before she helps him back into his shirt.

"It doesn't look too bad, probably just a fracture." She notes. There's a lightness creeps on her face as she buttons his shirt back up, like she's remembering some private joke.

"Got alotta experience with broken ribs?" He asks as he eases an arm to his chest and the pain isn't too bad if he doesn't move.

She settles next to him, careful not to jostle the cot next to him. "John fractured one once on duty, fell down some stairs." The smile drops as she recalls the memory. Peter face pulls but she fakes with the same sad crooked grin. "He wasn't such a baby, though." She tries to joke but staring down and her fingers as they lay useless in her lap.

Something constricts in Peter's chest and he tries his best at detachment. "Do you still think about him?" He asks nonchalantly. She looks miles away; unfocused on something in the distance.

"About whom?" she asks, her eyes still stuck on whatever was under her nails. Peter clears his throat. He's not really interested, he tells himself.

"John. About John." He mumbles as he eases himself back against the wall, closing his eyes. She looks surprised. His name hadn't been mentioned since he died and turned into _that must not be named _between them_._ He opens an eye and quirks an eyebrow to look sidelong at her.

All she does is shrug. "Sometimes, I guess." She doesn't go beyond that. Peter's feeling either indiscriminately intrusive or severely masochistic but there's some reason he needs to know. Either way his heart picks up and pumps adrenalin through his aching limbs.

Why the hell does this bother him?

"After everything he put you through?" He challenges, knowing already he's prodding too much.

Her face twitches, angry lines pulling and knitting her brow together. "Put me through?" Her brow stays planted. "What does _that _mean?" Angry, he thinks, she's definitely angry.

Her anger is palpable and he clings to it, thinking it's nice to feel something other than the dread they've been experiencing the last hellish hours. He fires back, irrationally he knows, because anger help keep him distracted off his swollen face and broken ribs.

"Olivia, look at what he did to you," his voice is high and border lining on hysterical, "you tracked me down on the other side of the planet to pull a mad scientist out of a mental institution to climb in some failed science experiment of a tank in the attempt to save the guy, for Christ's sake."

Her mouth hangs open, shocked and bewildered and hurt all swirling around in cycles on her face. He's back to feeling like an asshole. He can work through that though, if it keeps the fear at bay.

"And you take his name?" He finishes, and it's strangely cathartic.

Olivia's off the cot, arms crossed; livid.

"How is that any of your business?" She spats down at him. Peter's neck prickles.

"It's none of my business; I just don't understand why you're so stuck on a guy who'd spent the better part of your partnership lying to you." He growls back at her.

He might as well have slapped her. The look on her face somewhere between mutinous and horrified and he's trying to focus his attention back on his ribs.

"That's something you two have in common then." She spats back, arms crossed so tightly across her chest her knuckles are white. The comment stings, and Peter scrambles for a way to get out of the hole he's dug.

"You knew who I was. I've told you I'm not one of the good guys." He tries, feeling absurdly naked and exposed under her leveled gaze. She's working him over; trying to pick out the meaning behind his ramblings and he's worried she's going to see right through him.

"What's this about?" She cuts to the chase. "You in some kind of pissing war with a man who's been dead for over a year?"

Peter recoils; whatever point he had lost in the truth in her words he didn't want to hear. He wants to drop it.

"It's nothing." He recants, easing himself up. His side burns, he wants to cough but he's afraid if he does he might knock something loose. He lays a hand on her arm as a white flag of surrender. She softens under it, just barely. "It's not like you were going to marry the guy of anything." He chuckles.

Her face goes white, whatever smile she yielded wiped clean. He withdrawals his hand and lets it hang numbly at his side.

"Oh." Is all he can muster.

Her eyes are uneasy slits on her face. She runs her hands to smooth down her hair. He backs up; stumbling back into the cot and the inferno in his chest makes him dizzy as he is shaky on his feet.

"So what's the plan? How are we going to get out of here?" She says, helping him shift into a more comfortable position, her fingers reaching and adjusting the makeshift bandage wrapping around his chest.

Her fingers are fevered; hot and moist against his clammy skin. He tries to ignore the revelation that hung between them. She would have married _him. _

"They have a list of the components needed for the formula. It won't take them long for them to track it all down." His voice is broken in his throat.

"You gave it to them?" He asks, incredulous.

He waves a lazy hand, "Not all of it." He answers, a little smile playing his lips. "We won't have long before they realize it though."

She's silent. Finding his face and looking aghast. "So what, you make a dead formula and they let us walk out of the front door?" She says.

"Do you know why meth-heads are always blowing themselves up trying to make the stuff?" He asks gruffly. She finishes his sentence for him.

"It's unstable." She answers. He drops his chin down, impressed.

"Exactly." He says.

Her face crumples in confusion, putting the pieces together like some aggravating puzzle.

"You're going to blow it up?" She asks, unimpressed. She's still trying to work out what she's missing.

Peter shrugs. He never said it was a good plan.

"Distraction." Her face is unresponsive. He goes on.

"It'al need to temper, we'll have a little time to make it out before it becomes reactive." He says cryptically. He knows she won't buy it though. "We'll make it out before the explosion. There's a bathroom on the south side of the house we can get out through."

"How much time?" She asks, like he knows she would.

"A minute, maybe two." He mumbles. She just nods, her hands smoothing her hair again and he wonders how she has any left.

"Can you walk?" She asks, seeing one kink of many in his plan.

"I can dance when we're out." He returns lightly, trying not to betray his own worry over the same question.

She doesn't seem to believe him, but she doesn't say anything else on the matter.

"And what if you can't get back before it reacts?" She asks. Peter shrugs, shifting his eyes away to focus on the bulb above her.

"You should be safe down here from the explosion if anything should go awry. Someone will see the smoke and call the police." Her face is cast in apprehension. "I'm not leaving without you." He answers.

"That's not what I meant." She whispers. A chill takes over his skin and he shivers.

"I know," He whispers, "but either way they won't get that formula." He sounds more heroic than he actually feels. He's only a step below terrified.

"Besides, it's the only plan we've got." He admits.

He wraps his arms across his chest, feeling icy cold but trying not to shake because the pain is unbearable. There's dead silence between them; he expects her to say something, to tell him that his plan is crazy, _because it is, _but she just sits quietly beside him, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and sharing some of her body heat to his now freezing limbs.

They sit in silence and try not to think about all the things that could go wrong in the morning.


	12. Chapter 12

We're venturing back into M territory, so if you're a youngin' it's time to exit stage left. Let me put it out there that I have NO idea how to make methamphetamines, nor do I feel it necessary to devote extensive research to. All knowledge is thanks to the few episodes of Breaking Bad I've seen. Enjoy!

-s

* * *

"How are you going to get back down here before the formula is reactive?"

Peter sighs, feeling sore and broken and tired. They've been going through every minute detail of his plan for the last couple hours. Olivia's been picking apart every element and has walked through every detail more than her eidetic memory needs. At this point he thinks she's talking just to fill the silence.

"The when I combine the pseudophan, it will react to the other elements of the formula, giving off a dense gas as a byproduct. That should be enough to distract them for me to come back and get you." He plays along.

"If it distracts them." She corrects.

"It will distract them." He soothes. His fingers are numb. They're stuffed in his armpits seeking warmth, but they're frozen blocks against the material. He can't shake the overwhelming dread that hangs in the air. He's doing his best to keep that from her, but as she's tearing to shreds his feeble plan, it's hard to keep up the bravado.

She notices his shift; the way his face is drawn and pale; he's been wheezing the last hour or so trying to keep the burning in his chest under wraps. She's next to him on the cot, pressing a cool palm against his forehead.

"You're warm." She says.

"It's freezing in here." He retorts; shoving his fingers further into himself. His feet are numb, his hands aching. She looks at him with concern. He closes his eyes and his teeth chatter in his mouth.

There's the sound of rustling clothing and he realizes it's him: she's pulling apart the buttons on his shirt and he's still, opening his eyes in alarm as she untwines his hands to take off his shirt. The frigid air stings his bare arms but he doesn't focus on that too long because she's pulling his undershirt gingerly away from the bandage and over his head.

"Uh," he throws out, shaking harder as she kneels down to unbuckle his belt.

"You're going into shock." She says blandly. Her fingers are ice cubes on his stomach but he's more focused on her as she's undoing his jeans. "Shift forward, will you?" She orders, irritated when he just sits there like a statue. He's uses a free hand to brace himself as he budges up enough for her to slide his jeans down his hips, wrapping his other hand around his chest to keep down the pain.

He's shivering furiously now, his fingers trembling in the cold air. He's sitting half naked in his boxers on the cot, confused and irritated and exhausted. He lets out a grated hiss, closing his eyes as the bitter cold from the walls curl up his back. He feels her frigid hands on his shoulders guiding him to lie down on his side on the cot. He does so without comment, wondering what the hell she was playing at.

His eyes are unfocused as she tosses an old scratchy wool blanket over his form from god knows where. It's stiff against his bare skin but is quickly replaced with Olivia's warm body as she slips under it to lie beside him.

He can feel her skin hot against his, arranging a bare leg over him and he soon realizes that she was void of clothing as well. His eyes pop open, her face next to his and he can feel the glorious heat as it radiates from her skin to warm his.

"This is not what I was expecting." He muses; trying to decide how much clothing she was wearing by ticking off the places he felt hot skin against his.

"Survival one-oh-one." She says matter-of-factly against his forehead, laying a warm hand on his bare chest and he thrives on the explosive heat, pulling her flushed against him. The feeling is miraculous, but he's still shaking even as she slings her long leg more securely over his hip. He presses his forehead against her neck, snaking an arm around her and feeling more naked skin.

"Every Boy Scout should learn this way." He jokes, but his lips tremble and trip on the words so he's not sure if she can hear him. Her breath is warm against his forehead and he breathes in her scent; feeling euphoric as he catches the lingering scent of them together. His stomach warms against her and they suddenly have a new set of problems.

"Erm," he fills, feeling himself react to her presence and the embarrassment washes over him, but his impulse for survival keeps her pressed tightly against him. She stiffens against him; his erection now painfully announced against her thigh.

"Is that…" she trails off suggestively, her lips pursing against his forehead. He can imagine the bemused look on her face even as his head is buried into her shoulder.

"Nope." He retorts quickly. He feels her husky chuckling against his cheek and the embarrassment deepens. How did she expect him to react?

"Not my idea." He reminds her, his fingers trailing down the little notches of her spine without his volition. His cold fingers cause a quick intake a breath; little goose bumps appear on her skin and she arches into him haphazardly. The cold a distant memory at this point, all he can feel is the saturating warmth of her body.

He slides his fingers further; slipping under the fabric of her bra and when she speaks, her voice is low and hoarse against his skin. "I'm supposed to be saving your life here." She mutters. He smiles against her fevered skin, reveling in her uneven breathing.

His lips find the soft skin of her neck, trailing a wet kiss to the hallow of her shoulder and she makes a noise like a sigh. He can't feel the cold anymore. He can't feel the dread or the haunting fear of their chances of making it out tomorrow. All he can feel is Olivia's hot breath in his ear and her soft skin on his own.

He's trailing his tongue over the straight line of her clavicle, leaning up on a propped elbow and he gasps into her chest: the pain swells white-hot in his side and he claws into her skin to ride out the crest of pain. He feels her wince against him but she doesn't cry out.

"You okay?" She whispers, unmoving against his forehead. The pain is a blinding white light; all he can give is a nod. His face prickles in an uneasy sweat, she smoothes his soaked hair off his forehead and waits it out with him. After a few agonizing seconds the pain subsides into a dull thud of numbness.

He loosens his grip on her skin, knowing he's probably given her another bruise. "Sorry." He mutters, still panting and trying to peek over her shoulder to inspect the damage. She doesn't let him though, she runs her lips gently over his and the pain morphs into a smoldering burn low in his abdomen. She doesn't push him though, just tracing the contours of his mouth with hers.

It's him who deepens it, opening her lips and tasting her tongue. She responds in turn, wrapping her arm around his neck to push into him and nips at his bottom lip.

"Peter," she whispers—he isn't interested in anything she wants to say because it's pivotal that he continues kissing her, not letting her finish her thought. He runs a spare hand down her sides, feeling the swell of her hip and the softness of her skin in stark contrast to the starchy material of the blanket covering them both. She breaks their kiss and Peter worries he'll hear her say _no, _but she's placing soft kisses on the bridge of his broken nose, his forehead, his puffy black eye. He lips feel cold without her, so he plants them low on her chest and tasting her barely there sweat.

His fingers play delicately on the material of her underwear, and he thinks how absurdly beautiful she is; to always be buttoned up so tightly in a thick wool coat seems criminal. Her stomach is soft and taut as he touches it, feeling its smoothness and he aches just looking at her. She bucks violently when his fingers dip lower, running its way up the thigh thrown over him and the feel of her heel digging into the back of his leg.

Her lips and tongue tickle right below his ear and his throaty chuckle fills the small space under the blanket. He pulls her thigh more firmly against his hips and she lets out a silent puff of air. He needs her; in some ancient primal hunger deep in his chest. He needs to feel her, to taste her, to make her happy.

But he won't break that last barrier: if he surrenders now that means they're going to be separated tomorrow and he may find be able to find her again. It's illogical even as he thinks it, but the fear keeps him from responding when she grinds her hips violently against his.

Her hand drops from around his neck to the band of his boxers. He shudders against her lips when she drops a finger under the material to drag low enough to slip her hand in. He's ready for her when her fingers curl around him.

"'Livia," he pants as he grips her wrist, making a link around her to stop her moving hand. She pulls her face away, her eyes darkened and heavy as she stares at him. He forgets what he wants to say so his mouth hangs open.

His eyes search hers in unanswered questions: looking for any indecision, any hesitance. His head shakes indecisively, his brow furrowing and willing her to understand. Her lips pull up on one side as she shakes off his hesitancy.

"Peter," she says, her voice low in his throat, "stop trying to protect me." She finishes stubbornly. She shakes off his restraint to take him more securely in hers. His jaw drops from the sensation and the fierceness of her words. He knows she isn't one for sentiments, but this…

She takes his lips more forcefully, releasing him long enough to pull his boxers low enough for him to kick them away, his heart pounding furiously in his chest as he feels her grip him. One quick slide of her hand and he's gasping her name into her mouth.

He's long past cold at his point, but his fingers still shake as he hooks a thumb in the fabric of her underwear to slide them too slowly down her hips. He can feel her impatience in the rhythm of her hand on him and she's practically squirming when the material reaches her knees. Her breathing catches as he runs a nimble thumb over her, remembering in perfect clarity the things she likes and the sounds he can make her compose with a simple curl of a finger as he slips one inside her. She's warm like honey, slick and ready under his touch and he can't help but trace the contours of the inside of her thigh until she's sucking air in shallow breaths.

She hitches her knee higher on his hip, grazing the outline of the bruise but the pain somehow intensifies the naked need as she catches his lips again in a deep kiss as she directs him just outside her opening. Peter's eyes are open and wide as he watches her, gripping her hand as she's gripping him as he tries to make one last effort of confirmation.

"Sure?" he pants, unable to expel the air enough to ask the full question. She doesn't answer, dropping her mouth to his and biting down on his bottom lips as she helps him guide into her. The pleasure he feels as he slips into her is blinding: he makes one long grated groan as he eases himself inch my agonizing inch into her, feeling her stretch around him as she accommodates his size. She's gripping his back sharply, her face contorted in what looks like pain.

"You okay?" he breathes, stopping his movements and freezing as the fear creeps back up his spine. Her brow is tight and low, her mouth tense as she nods. He raises a hand to cup her cheek, wrapping another arm around the back of her neck to force her to look at him.

"What is it?" He asks, the desperation overpowering the pleasure. Her eyes flutter open, looking at the space around him as he remains frozen. She swallows loudly, dropping her eyes back down to his lips as she kisses him again, sliding her hand to rest on his lower back as she rocks into him, taking him wholly into her. Peter lets out the breath he didn't realize he was holding.

They're working out the sensations of one another: tangled limbs and wet kisses as he moves slowly inside her. The feeling of her is unreal; the taste of her filling his senses and it's not long before he's close, rocking into her with more with more abandon as the paralyzing feeling of her intensifies. He shifts to roll her onto her back against the cot, taking a moment to adjust himself above her. They take care not to move his battered ribs as they cling to each other as he enters her more deeply this time and it's a whole new sensation.

Peter's a block of dynamite, the lit fuse smoldering its way into detonation and the pain of his ribs forgotten as he thrusts like a mad man, whispering incoherent nonsense into her lips as they devour him. She's stamping her nails hard into his back and he knows she's close, wrapping his arms under hers to brace her neck as he kisses her with so much fever she's gasping into his mouth.

His stomach tips, his knuckles white as they bury themselves into her hair, crushing her face against his as the pleasure explodes around him. He feels her stiffen, arching against him as he rides the waves of bliss and gasping when she comes with him, the biting of her nails leaving trails of fire down his back. The rippling warmth floods his aching limbs, leaving him panting and spent in her grasp.

They lay like that for a while: tousled and heavy of intertwined limps. Her heart flutters in her chest and he leans an ear against it, letting it thumb like a drum to soothe him until his breathing returns. When he can move, he plants small kisses along her chest, feeling lighter than he had since this whole thing started at the bar.

"That tickles," she whines, running her fingers through his hair and he feels content as he works his lips back up to hers again. Soon they both cool as the adrenalin works its way out of their system and the fear dangles treacherously outside of his happy little bubble. He worries this might be the last time he'd ever see her.

"Olivia," his starts, the tremors of terror working its way back into his voice. Her face is lazy and sleepy, tweaking up an eyebrow up at her name. She sees the fear in his face and she speaks over him, massaging the stiff muscles of his neck and he lays it against her chest.

"Promise me something." She says. He responds with "_hmmm_?" when talking becomes difficult.

"Whatever happens, make sure you get out tomorrow." She says softly and his brow furrows, lifting his head with effort to square off with her. The pain in his ribs is moving from numb to painful again as he slides his hands up to cup her face.

"I'm not leaving without you." He growls angrily at her, daring her to challenge him. Her face is sad, but he's not sorry for snapping at her. He'd never tell her, but now he was in this for good. He's not going anywhere without her. She'd had better just accept that.

"Peter," she opens her mouth to argue, but their focus is pulled when the familiar crank of the lock lifting distracts them and whatever she wants to say dies as the door swings open and the same spiteful light spills into the room.


	13. Chapter 13

We're to the backhalf of the story now folks, thank you to everyone following and sharing their concern to our poor Peter and Olivia. Strong subject matter here, so beware. I own nothing.

-s

* * *

Adrenalin spikes in Peter's chest as the light fills the room and he's up and sliding into his jeans without the foresight of adhering to the pain as it radiates in his chest like a battering ram. Olivia scrambles for her own clothes behind him, pulling on her underwear under the scant protection the blanket provides. Peter stands, slightly hunched and half naked like an angry bear in front of her.

There's loud and thunderous clapping emanating from the door way as Tony slides in looking like he's just hit jackpot. He continues the ovation, rolling his hips as he takes in the strewed clothing with obvious glee. Olivia wraps the blanket around her shoulders and stands next to Peter.

"Very impressive, Bishop! Truly inspirational." Tony taunts as he takes in Olivia with sickly amusement. Peter's eyes drop to search out a gun that's missing from Tony. His heart picks up and he feels like they might have a break. Tony's voice breaks him momentarily form concentration.

"I mean, I knew you were _good," _he goads, hitching up his pants around his hips, "but I didn't know you were _this good." _His hands clasp together joyfully and Peter's on edge, feeling his hands shake in anticipation as the realization that Tony being the only barrier to the opened door. They just couldn't be this lucky. His breathing evens as he traces their escape in his mind; trying to calculate the time and hoping against hope its dark enough outside for them to hide.

He knows Olivia notices it too, reaching down to retrieve her fallen clothing under the unabashed gaze of Tony's wondering eyes.

"Pretty, this one." Tony mutters to himself, close to Peter and watching Olivia shrugging into her top appreciatively. His eyes shift back to Peter again, his face close enough that Peter smells the stale coffee and cigarettes on his breath. Peter continues to regulate his breathing, pushing the pain down in his chest to sit coiled in the pit of his stomach. Tony makes little clucking noises on his tongue as his eyes skirt their way back to Olivia shoving her legs into her jeans.

He leans into Peter, who scrunches his hands into fists, the adrenaline rising in spikes and he's trying hard to not look at the opened door like a siren. He's almost startled when Tony's voice hisses against his neck when he talks. "How was she?" He asks. A chill ripples Peter's spine.

Peter levels his stare at Tony, the intensity of fury masking every other emotion. He's ready: he takes a step back ready to propel through Tony but he stops when another figure enters the room. The stocky thug stalks in the room and Peter's crestfallen: he's carrying the gun that was absent from Tony.

Tony was just goading him and now his plan is back peddling. He feels Tony's hand on his naked shoulder and he flinches. "You don't mind sharing, do you?" He asks with a straight face. Peter takes a step back and shakes away Tony's hand. The pain rises in his chest but it's quickly replaced with something else. Fear.

"Go to hell." Peter spats, taking quick steps back to Olivia's frozen figure. The man quickly flanks Tony as he takes out the gun to hand over to Tony's waiting hand. Peter glances sidelong at Olivia, and sees her face has gone white. _No, no, no…_

"Come 'er, sweetheart." says the man as he bunches Olivia's hair in his fist, pulling her away from Peter's grasp. Peter's instinct pushes the arm holding her hair and the pain skyrockets in his broken ribs, but he pays little attention to it. The man pushes a hand against Peter's sternum and he's lost all breath to the blinding fire. He collapses to his knees, his hand clenching tightly against his throat like it would force air to come to him. He feels like he's drowning. Little spots of light explode as he chokes on nothing.

Through watery eyes he finds Olivia pushed face first into the side of the concrete wall, the man's fist still balling her hair against her skull and trapping her between the wall and himself. Tony's behind Peter now, laughing outwardly as he points the gun at the back of Peter's head. Peter's voice is lost, he tries to call out to her, but her name is strangled in his throat.

"You see, Bishop" Tony can hardly hide his excitement, "Your friend here was rather rude to Archer the last time they met. I think it's time she makes it up to him." Fire rages inside Peter's skull and tries to sit up, only to be kicked back down by Tony, adding to a new swell of pain.

Archer is hovering over Olivia's pressed figure and their gazes meet. Her face is white but blank, her lips curling downward but otherwise motionless. Even as Archer reaches down to unfasten the front of his pants does she finally clamp her eyes shut. She's not going to fight with the gun trained at the back of his head. He tries to call out to her to do something, _anything _but his voice is still disguised in his raw throat. Peter squeezes his eyes shut to pinpoint the pain to force it down.

"Get ready for the show." Tony whispers from above and Peter opens his eyes again, the fire cranking in his veins at an alarming pace as he watches in slow motion the events as they play out in front of him:

Archer has Olivia's pants down around her hips, her nails stamped into the concrete she's pushed against. The man's mouth is moving outside Olivia's ear but he hears nothing, the _thunk-thunking_ of his heart beating drowning everything else out. Olivia's eyes open to find Peter and she lets a lip quirk, her battered face smashed against the concrete and obscuring her profile. The unmistakable click from the hammer clicking back in the gun Tony's aiming. And finally, the penetrating ring of Tony's laughter at forcing Peter to watch the giant man align his hips up with Olivia's and he finally snaps.

Everything explodes in white hot rage. He's not even aware of the movements his body is making; he can only watch with the curiosity of a bystander as he twits around to knock the gun out of Tony's unsuspecting hand and it clatters away out of sight. He see's Tony's alarmed face as he winds up an arm to barrel his fist down on the side of Tony's head without the foresight to react; the momentum jerking him backward and he crumples. Peter's head swivels back to Archer, barely aware of transgression as his face is buried in Olivia's neck and trying to shake out of his pants with one hand. Olivia's eyes are wide and alert as Peter ascends on them both, he can tell in the slowed time that she braces herself against the wall.

Archer never sees him coming until Peter's fingers are clamped in his hair and forcing his face into the side of the wall with a sickening _thump_ and time catches back up with Peter. Archer makes a wet sound as he slides backward off Olivia who falls with them in a heap of entangled limbs on the ground. Peter feels the paralyzing pain I his chest but the fury is powerful; beating little angry bullets in his skin. Olivia rolls away to slide back into her pants as Peter lifts his arm to fire fist after fist into the face of the man who had already stopped protecting himself. He senses Olivia scrambling back into the corner, trying to find the gun no doubt, but he's hardly concerned with any of that. He alternates his rage between fists as he continues to rain punches on the man in any place he can reach. He knows with absolute finality that he's going to kill him.

"We've gotta go!" Olivia yelps as she races back over to Peter, grabbing his relentless arm to pull him backward off the man. The pain is splitting his chest apart at the seams but he shakes her off, dropping back down on the man, his fury not yet spent. It's not until she spins around into his view, dropping low to demand his attention does he freeze, his name puncturing the sound of his breathing when she almost yells it.

"Peter!"

He lets his arm drop and his chest shakes. He stares at her through blurry eyes for a pregnant moment as she takes his hand away from the unconscious man and lets her pull him upright. When he's too slow, she pulls him harder, the pain cresting but he's upright; letting her pull an arm over her shoulder for support and he realizes that the door is still open. He casts a look backward, Tony and Archer still spread out on the hard concrete floor, unrecognizable under all the blood. They're out the door and Olivia locks it behind them, rounding the corner of the kitchen and carrying most of Peter's weight.

"To the left," he pants, trying to clear his mind through the thick fog, feeling suddenly his knuckles burning on his hands. She turns them through the kitchen and Peter recognizes the equipment laying new on the counters. They're through the back hallway and out the door leading to the back porch in moments that feels like hours.

Peter's naked feet touch soil for the first time in days. It's wet and cold and the sensation is overwhelming. The sun has set; the sky cast in reds and oranges and reflecting off the expansive foliage that surrounds them. The cold air burns his lungs and prickles the skin on his chest. He feels Olivia panting beside him.

"Which way?" She demands, gripping his arm hard around her neck as she drags him along. When he doesn't respond fast enough she leads them to the east, half running half dragging Peter as he fights for consciousness over the pain. The house comes to life behind them, voices carrying into the darkness as they race furiously to the cover the plant life can provide. Peter begs him limbs to respond, to help them along and it's terrifying that the men inside the house could soon be following them. He shakes his head and grits his teeth, burrowing through the pain to move his legs astride with hers, taking step after step away from their captures and into the night.

"They're coming." Olivia pants beside him, pulling him to the right and the sentence lights a new thrill of terror in him, his feet muddy and sliding in the ground as they make their way further from the angry voices and darkened figures that are surely following them.

"Olivia," he tries hoarsely, his tongue cement paper in his mouth. She already knows what he's going to say, he's going to suggest that she leave him behind.

"Not a chance." She mutters with a ring of finality. He hears the clomping of feet around them, but they continue on, breaking into a full srint despite the protest of his broken rips. He breathes in the cold air and it makes him dizzy, like he hadn't breathed in years. They're another mile or so from the highway and he's guiding them northeast now, praying there would be someone on the road for help.

The clumping feet fall silence, the sound of their ragged breathing the only thing filling the night. They continue in a flat run, awkwardly leaning on each other like a twisted three legged race. The air is fire in his lungs, concentrating hard on finding the road. He's practically willing his body to continue moving. They run hard for what seems like forever, covered in more darkness now and Peter's starting to feel desperate; worried if they've missed the road, if they took a wrong turn. But another couple of hard, sliding steps up a hillside and he spots it, glinting like a ray of hope under the moonlight and he's ecstatic. They're almost there.

The blood pumps furiously in his head, they slide a little as a rock overturns under her foot and she slips, knees grinding down against the hard asphalt of the landside. It's he who pulls her up, helping her find her footing without looking at her, his face still trained on the exposed pieces of road from under the brush that surrounds them. They're so close…

A gunshot rings out in the cold night; deafening him as she jerks them to the ground in a heavy heap. FBI reaction to gunshots, he knows. The pain burns his chest, but he doesn't lose sight of the road, concentrating on it like it might disappear if he looks away. It's dark now, almost black and they're so close. He can see the gravel on the road.

"C'mon Olivia," he calls to her, squinting his eyes on the road as he rolls to his knees to pull her back up. It's the gasp she makes that finally makes him look down at her. She's lying on her back on the landscape her hand clamped over her chest by her shoulder. The sounds of footsteps draw near to them, but Peter can't make out which way they're coming from.

"Olivia, let's go!" He calls desperately, feeling instinctually something amiss. "Olivia?" He voice rising in hysterics when she doesn't move, he lifts her into a seating position and pries her hand away from the spot on her chest. His stomach drops when he pulls it away; her shoulder is covered in blood, her hand sticky and dark in the moonlight. Realization hits like a ton of bricks.

"Olivia, no." He calls, cradling her against his chest and bracing a hand against the wound. It feels hot against his skin as the cold night feels suddenly colder. The footsteps are close now, his eyes scanning the tree line for the approaching figures. Braches cracking, leaves rustling, it's all lost sound as he cradles her, his chest heaving in pain. The road might have been hundreds of miles away now, for all the good it was to him.

"Peter," she croaks, her breathing hitching and rippling in her chest. The dark figures close in around them as they move from the shadows of trees surrounding them. His voice is broken; he can't even offer her words of solace; of comfort.

All was lost.


	14. Chapter 14

They're being dragged through the rugged terrain of what was supposed to be their refuge. Peter lets himself be led across the wet and rocky landscape, the fight instinct he had moments ago extinct. They're going to die now, he's sure of it; comes to terms with it once he saw the blood seeping from Olivia's chest. It's too dark now to see just how bad it is, but unless she gets medical attention now, she'll be dead by morning.

If she makes it till morning.

He's got her dead weight tucked neatly in his arms, daring the men who've tracked them down to take her from him. He'd be damned if they try to pull her from his cold dead fingers. Guns aimed and pointed, they came out of the darkness after he gave up, knowing they couldn't go on. He isn't sure if they meant to hit her or if they were aiming for him, but it doesn't matter. Time was a precious commodity that they couldn't afford to waste. He went with them willingly, telling them through gritted teeth that he was going to carry her. His eyes dark and dangerous, clinging her possessively to his naked chest, they didn't argue.

He's gasping for air as they make it back to the clearing of the house: the pain in his side twisting and he's not sure if it's from the ribs or the terrifying chance that Olivia was going to die in his arms. The sight of the house almost makes him lose it, his arms shaking and constricting, it feels like walking into his grave willingly.

A rat faced looking guy holds the door open for him enough to navigate both he and Olivia through it. His feet feel cold on the linoleum as he pads through the kitchen to wait. He looks down at Olivia, her face pale and her eyes clenched shut, trying to stab down the pain he knows she's in. The smell of blood reaches his nose and is wired directly to his throat.

"How you doin' sweetheart?" He mumbles low enough for her to hear. Her eyes cast upward as she cracks a smile, but it's twinged in muted pain.

"Oh, just great," she responds, her voice gruff, "call me sweetheart again, because I'd really like that."

Peter doesn't know if he wants to laugh or cry. She smiles up at him, but it's cut short by the gasping wet coughs that follow. Peter bends low to let her stand on her own feet, feeling the coiling pain mixing with fear into a full blown cocktail freak out. He feels the wetness from her shoulder on his chest, holding her weight despite the protest of his ribs.

Tony's waiting for them, a fresh shiner from Peter and looking like a pissy soccer mom: hands on hips, toe tapping a _click, click, click_ on the floor in his disappointment.

"She needs a hospital." Peter says through grit teeth. Tony rolls his eyes as he throws his hands up in n overly melodramatic display of frustration.

"She needed you not to pound the livin' shit outta Archer's skull down there, Bishop!" He exclaims. Peter prickles, the image of the massive figure looming over Olivia as she was flattened against the wall and his knuckles burn from clenching them so hard. He bites back his retort. He hopes the bastard's dead.

Olivia coughs beside them, this time a wet gargling sound and Peter's stomach drops. Tony's all smiles again.

"Back to the basement." He says.

Peter busts at the seams. He grips Olivia hard to keep her upright, holding her as the coughs rack her chest and the blood oozes through her clenched hand. He reaches around to press his hand on top of hers, trying to make a seal of good intentions over the wound.

"She needs medical attention!" He shouts, feeling woozy at as the approximation of how much time she has before shock sets in. "If you let her die, you get nothing, _nothing _from me." He spats angrily at Tony.

Tony takes a set toward them, and for once Peter really sees how haggard he looks: his pants and shirt are wrinkled, pit stains yellowing the corners under his arms, hair sticking up in disarray. He looks like how Peter feels.

"The basement." Tony grates and Peter has a fleeting thought, but it's pushed aside as Peters being shoved back toward the stairs leading to the prison cell. He's focusing on trying to keep Olivia from falling over sideways as they're marched back to the dreaded room. He realizes as he trips over the last stair that he's become Walter incarnate: terrified, deranged and being shoved back into St. Claire's.

"She'll get help, when you get me the formula, Bishop!" He hears Tony shout down at him before the door closes and clicks shut behind him, sealing them in again. Peter's breath is coming out in wet and strangled gasps, the walls too close together and the room too familiar as they're once again locked in.

There's blood splattered on the ground where he attacked Archer and it feels like years ago. He's shaking, terrified at what's to come. Olivia sags in his arms, he catches her weight as her legs give out under her and he's crumbling with her, trying to take the blunt of the fall because pain is good, pain means he's being punished and he deserves all of it.

He rolls onto her back, stricken and losing blood and Peter can only watch as he tries to figure out what he can do. It's a hallow feeling; what's seeping into his chest and filling him from the inside out. The hopelessness. The fear. The anger. He hones in on the anger and pulls him back to reality, grounding him and screaming at him to safe her. Because she can't die, not here, not like this, in some makeshift prison on the concrete floor. Not after just knowing what she means to him.

He's a rational scientific mind. He's a fucking _genius_ for Christssakes and she was not going to die as long as he clings to his intellect and the sheer determination that she will NOT die today. He hunches over her, hoping she could feel the resolve emanating from his every pore and forces her to take it. He presses his hand over the wound that she's stopped fisting, feeling it pool out between his fingers despite all his good intentions and desperate want.

"Olivia—stay with me."


	15. Chapter 15

The blood's everywhere. Sticky, wet, and flowing without regard to the flat hand pressed firmly against the wound in Olivia's shoulder. Her face is pale, almost grey and even as he leans his weight onto his hand it does little to staunch the outpour.

Her chest is heaving; his on fire but he doesn't feel anything but ebbing panic and mute fear that he refuses to give into wholly. He's afraid do anything, to move away from her, to take his hand away even momentarily for irrational fear that she'd die if he does anything differently than he's doing now.

"Hey." He calls, pulling her heavy lids upward as she looks at him with foggy eyes. The blood from her shoulder is beginning to snake its way down the slope of the blade of the bone over skin and into her hair.

"What do you see?" He asks; a husky whisper but for some reason he knows simply that she sees _something. _Her smile ghosts across her face but it brings him far from some level of relief. She looks miles away, distant. Cold.

She mumbles something that catches in her throat, coming out thick and wrapped in a crinkling candy wrapper. She's caught with more gargling coughs and Peter shifts to tilt her head upward, terror clenching over his heart, trying to help her breathe. He lowers his head over her lips:

"Glimmer." Is all he makes out.

He doesn't understand. More wet coughing and he's caught between curiosity and flat terror. He calls her name, telling her it's going to be okay, that they're going to get out but he knows it's nothing but white noise at this point. Her head falls back into the crook of his elbow and electricity crackles and cracks in the air above him.

"Stop it!" He shouts through the silence, suddenly and inexplicably angry. Angry at the relentless absolution that everything about Olivia Dunham has to be stubborn; even the goddamned wound has to work against him because she's incapable of being helped.

She looks mildly alarmed at his exclamation, eyes wide but less dulled. Peter plucks her hand from the ground below them, pulling it across her chest to lace with his to press against the gunshot wound. He closes his eyes: slamming the lids so tightly that it feels like his brain will boil under the tension. The world is spinning again; wide and undiluted and he tries to focus the energy to a fine pinpoint.

There's the sudden jolt of electric current hammering in his chest, moving to his limbs and radiating down his arms and displacing the tiny hairs there, standing them on end. The force creeps from his fingers and into her hand; a charge running down the length of a fuse.

He's not afraid of the sudden jolt of energy, _quite the opposite,_ and he's almost feeling a sense of comfort wash over him like warm water. He channels the sensation; letting it ride down his extremities and into every piece of her he's holding like he's forcing her to take it.

"You're not doing this to me." He hisses through the foggy high, digging his fingers into her skin and everything feels warm and bright.

There's a long sodden pause before the coughing turns into retching. She's twisting her head away from him and blood covers more of the concrete. His concentration shatters and the pleasant warmth pops like some invisible soap bubble around them, the fear returning like ice water.

_No, no, no, no…_

"No!" He shouts at her, the warmth in his arm now frozen. "Not after every goddamned thing we've been through, this is not going to be how it ends." His voice is hoarse as the lump in his throat strangles him. He's lost all control over everything. He's furious, terrified and enflamed; he's one big fiery burst of a conglomerate of fury.

"This ain't gonna happen, sweetheart." He grinds as asininely as he can manage at her. He wants her angry. He wants her to fight back.

She's awake, wincing and looking just a step above mutinous.

"I warned you." Her voice is raw but full of the same resentment as they first met. He releases the tension in his jaw just a bit. He sees the color touch her cheeks just enough that he's feeling more in control of his limps.

"Stay with me." He says calmly.

She quirks a lip, her face painted in crimson and swells of bruises as she retorts "Where am I suppose to go? An alternate universe?"

He answers with a short, humorless laugh.

"I got an idea." He says.

"Well, you better get on with it then." She replies.

"Can you make it until I come back?" He asks, there's no question in his voice though, there's no question on whether or not she'd survive at this point. He'd drag her back from hell if he had to.

She nods and he's pulling her over to a wall to lean her against. She clenches hard on his shoulder and buries her head against his chest as he moves her but she lets him drag her without complaint. Her chin dips against her chest, her hand painted in red over her shoulder.

He drops next to her, resting a hand on her knee almost willing himself to feel the same current of electricity he did before. He doesn't.

"You'll be here when I get back?" He asks without joking. A slight nod from her bobbing head and she pulls herself up to look at him: he can't even tell if she's breathing. She feels cold to touch and but he's got one chance before she bleeds out. He retrieves his shucked shirt he never bothered to grab before their botched escape to replace her bloodied hand. The blood looks almost black; dark ink against the powder white of her skin.

He reaches out to smooth a thumb against her cheek, so she knows he'll come back, but if he weren't lying to himself it's to remind himself that she was still alive, concrete and stable.

He's at the door, pounding away and it feels like déjà vu all over again as he yells for Tony with whatever breath he has left. His hands are covered in blood: if it's Archer's or Olivia's he's not sure.

The door creeks open and he steps back, letting the same uninviting light penetrate the space and blinding him. Tony stands there, arm outstretched, the gun pointed unflinchingly at Peter's face. He holds up his bloody hands in surrender, rolling his tongue around in his mouth as he waited.

He checks that Olivia is still awake at the side where he's left her and pulls his attention back to Tony who has up until now remained silent. Olivia's eyes never leave his even as he pulls to face Tony and scrounges up his best smart ass grin.

"Finally come to your senses?" Tony asks, his voice strangled and no longer surefooted.

Peter ignores him, the grin tightening his cheeks.

"I know," he starts, keeping his hands up as he looks for any signs from Tony to tell him if he's hot or lukewarm, "I know Big Eddie ain't coming." He says with all the spiteful mirth he can muster. He watches Tony's face fall just a fraction, his lip twitching just a bit.

He had his tell.

Jack pot.


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: Yikes! We're almost done here, folks and I'm getting a little sad to see this lil' monster end. Thank you to everyone for the continued support and feedback and encouragement.

Feedback always welcomed

* * *

The clock mounted to right of the refrigerator is ticking off the seconds until Olivia goes into shock.

Peter takes a mental checklist at everything he's fucked up in his life up to this point, and letting Olivia die alone in a basement below a methlab would be more than he'd be able to stomach in its sheer and absolute awfulness.

Every exposed piece of skin is caked in either mud or blood and he's starting to feel the little twinges of pain prickling in the soles of his feet from running over rocks from outside. His cracked ribs are making it exponentially more and more difficult for him to keep his breathing even, and his concussion and broken nose have joined together to mix into one endless, mind-splitting migraine.

Blood pounding in his ears, his heart hammering in his chest; arms over his head with a gun pointed directed in his face did not make Peter feel confident.

"What did you say to me?" Tony asks, the gun dancing in the blurry lines of Peter's vision; the plastic bags full of medical supplies and chemistry equipment sit tauntingly on the table where they've been abandoned.

"I know Big Eddie's not coming." Peter repeats, and Tony looks close to snapping. "He didn't even know I'm back in Boston." It was as much as an accusation as it was a declaration. One of the big guys that Peter's missed up until this point looks sidelong at Tony, but Tony's face is leveled only at Peter.

"Out." He demands, still looking at Peter.

The big guy doesn't respond right away, obviously missing that Tony's talking to him. He's still looking back and forth when Tony loses his patience.

"GET OUT! NOW!" Tony swings the gun from Peter to the startled muscle. He shoots a nasty look back at his boss but shuffles by Peter toward the door out of the kitchen.

"How's Archer?" Peter asks in a low, goading tone as the man saddles by him.

He's returned with only a menacing grumble and a brisk shoulder to the chest as the man passes, but he smirks to himself anyway.

An inventory of the room shows that they're the only two remaining: a Russian roulette standoff and Peter's without a gun.

Tony's face pulls tight, worn leather over skull and he looks so murderous that Peter knows without a doubt that his hunch is accurate.

"What did you think was gonna if I did this for you? Big Eddie was gonna throw you a parade?" He asks scathingly, leaning from foot to foot to keep the pain pinpointed to a single tangible region. Right now it's a tickling throb at the base of his neck. He's grasping at straws at this point; trying to piece together the picture and vying a way to use it to get Olivia the hell out of here.

He's startled by the manic explosion that replaced the usual calm, cynical MO that Tony's been managing up to this point.

"You ain't the only one in debt to Big Eddie, you know." Tony nearly shouts, the gun shivering in his hand, making it look almost hilariously like the rubber pencil trick. Peter shakes his head to refocus.

"This is over some debt?" Peter says, incredulous.

Tony's pacing, back and forth over the linoleum and the movement makes Peter feel slightly seasick.

"Not just some debt, Bishop." Tony snarls, stopping his movement to look red-eyed and deranged at Peter, whose pain is now a tingling sensation in his left hand.

"That woman's going to _die _down there, _and if she does_, your debt to Big Eddie will be the least of your worries, I assure you that." Peter scathes.

"You have _no idea_," Tony interrupts like Peter said nothing, "no idea just how you've fucked me." He elaborates by digging the bridge of the gun against his temple, digging it around the hair there. Peter's brow furrows and he focuses on focusing.

"I was gonna use that formula, it was going to be my ticket…" he mumbles, apparently either forgetting or uncaring that Peter was still there, "it was going to be my ticket back…"

Peter thought it a good time to intervene. "You were going to use it against Big Eddie? Cuz, I gotta tell you Tony, a gun would have been a hell of less trouble." He canters, feeling the light ping off his skin like little pointy arrows; everything hurts.

Tony whips his head back and forth like Peter just missed the punch line.

"I was supposed to find you Bishop," he starts, shoulders hunched; defeated. "I was supposed to bring you back to repay your debt. Big Eddie was gonna pay me a lot of money to find you." He waits for Peter to catch up, but Peter is far more occupied by the little bursts of kaleidoscope lights that are breaking out over Tony's exasperated face.

"So you found me." He quips, not dropping his glance.

"I looked for four goddamned years, Bishop. Big Eddie got inpatient. I blew through all the money." He breathes out like he didn't mean for it to slip. He goes back to pacing; Peter goes back to feeling like he's lost his sea legs. "I blew through more than I thought… you were supposed to be easy to find." Peter looks with interest the little pebbles of sweat that are forming on Tony's brow with interest. They're mesmerizing and Peter lets himself get distracted.

"When I couldn't find you, Big Eddie wanted it all back, all that money…" Peter swears he can see where Tony's worn through the linoleum. "I was disgraced. It was all your fault!" Tony's craziness returns in full force as he comes to the conclusion like he'd been rehearsing it for years. Peter's lazy eyes follow him, feeling like they're saddled with sand.

"And you thought that if you brought me back, he'd give you what? A hug?" Peter asks, concentrating the pain low into his big toe. His voice sounds slurred even to him.

"All would have been forgiven!" Tony snaps, his voice echoing off the hinges of the cabinets and the handles of the refrigerator. In a blur of motion, Tony's bringing the gun down to Peter's throat, forcing his head to turn to face the clock, watching it click by and he could feel each clack of the handle for the seconds hum through his bones…

The clock.

Olivia.

Fear picks up in his veins once more, his sight clearing slightly as the adrenaline renews his senses.

"If I found Peter Bishop and cracked the formula, he'd have no choice _but _to take me back. Everything would go back like it was!" A crazy man's logic.

Peter remains silent, his eye catching the little window the sits over the sink, the ratty curtains opened to the darkness outside. He wonders if it's still night. Something catches his eye that he doesn't understand, but it's gone in a flash before he can recognize what it is.

"Why lie then? Why all the theatrics?" He prompts, wanting to keep him talking. He feels cold sweat on his neck and his arms are shaking from keeping them raised this whole time. There's another quick glint of light reflecting through the window, but it's gone again. He pulls back to Tony, who appears to be focused intently on aiming his gun at Peter's throat.

"Wouldn't you know, when I finally found you, when I tracked down the famed conman Peter Bishop, he was working for the goddamned FBI? It was too perfect!" Tony chuckles now, squarely off topic. Peter glances at the window, and his heart picks up as his neck tingles. He finally places the images he's seeing; his brain screaming at it catches up. His pain now expanded to one giant body ache.

"I wanted you to suffer. I wanted you to know the fear of him coming back for you. I wanted to see you crack before you gave in. And as luck would have it, I didn't just find you, I found you with a little girlfriend. The Peter Bishop! With a _girlfriend!"_ Tony's voice is high and threading on deranged, and Peter had to force himself to meet Tony's disturbed gaze, his head full of magic 8 balls.

"You wanna know how she was, Bishop?" Tony takes a step closer, his voice low and airy. Peter's fist clenches. "You wanna know how your little girlfriend did whatever we asked?" The pain is suddenly secondary to the violent fury that was making its way up Peter's chest and flooding into his arms with the venom of cold, angry defiance that he couldn't help. The same cackling energy he felt before surges his limbs and making his entire coiled being tense and flex around the atomic eruption that he couldn't bottle even if he wanted to.

"That little girl," Peter grates through clenched teeth; his jaw working so tightly that his tongue is barely able to move to get the words out, "you wanna know what _she _does?" Peter spats, closing the distance between them, hunching over like panther. Tony takes a startled step backward, trying to regain his composure.

"That little girl is F. B. I." He hisses slowly, enunciating each word with the same slow pull like he was enjoying an aged scotch. He watches Tony's face whiten in horror; looking desperately for any sign that Peter might be bluffing. Peter takes another step at him, filling the room with his anger; white hot and highly combustible.

"They're going to come looking for her. And Big Eddie's gonna know how you kidnapped a government agent. How you're going to bring a lot of unwanted attention to his little organization." Tony's backed into the wall, Peter right there with him, nose to nose; forehead to forehead.

"What do you think they're going to do to you when they catch you? You're worse than a dead man, you're utterly fucked." He's breathing hot ash into Tony's face, the gun laying limply at his side; forgotten.

"And you know what? They're not even the most dangerous thing here right now, not by a long shot." He's hellfire and vengeance; a black hole ready to consume and destroy. Tony's got the gun back in Peter's face, but Peter swings his arm without realizing he's done it to break contact with Tony's wrist; he yelps and drops the gun like Peter's burned him.

His hands find Tony's throat on their own accord and the screaming fills the blackness of the night.

There's thundering on the staircase, Tony's eyes are triumphant of the coming reinforcements and, Peter snakes his head around to the small dingy window. He locks eyes and suddenly everything makes perfect sense.

There's a deafening explosion from the door being blown off its hinges with a battering ram: men in black uniforms and bullet proof vests wielding military grade rifles pour in like spilt oil and for a moment there's so much commotion that Peter doesn't know which way is up. Gunfire erupts behind him, a loud pop-pop in his ears and Peter feels hot pain lick at his arm but he's focused so intently on showering fist after fist on Tony that all he hears the wet slapping sound of knuckles on skin.

"Get down on the ground!" Someone shouts and there's the tell-tale thud of a body crumpling to the floor; he isn't concerned if they're giving up or dead. He's continuing to throw punches at any place he can hit on Tony's body, confident that no one will come to his rescue. There's a crack in his left hand and Peter knows it's broken, so he switches and starts to lay in on him with his right, unconcerned.

All the pent fear and anger and frustration is working through his system, rising and falling like some great wave and so fucking cathartic and soon his eyes are blurry and his head's spinning but that doesn't slow him down in the least. When Tony slumps to the floor, he kicks him, bracing his weight against the wall and the anger is really the only thing keeping him upright.

"Bishop!" Someone calls, but he ignores them, feeling only his hands on the wall, the burning in his chest, and his bare feet against Tony.

"Bishop!" It calls again, right behind him, trying to restrain him. With an angry growl, he pushes the hands away to continue to swing more kicks at Tony's unconscious form. The nuclear explosion of his anger cresting through every muscle, every displaced hair, releasing through his pores and each single fiber of his being.

Several leather gloved hands grab his arms now to pull him backward, the blind anger dissipating and the spell broken. Peter slumps to his knees, spent, the spinning making him nauseas but he continues to try to fight against the strong arms holding him to get back to Tony's broken body. Blood is dribbling down his arm freely and he's screaming for Olivia without really understanding what he's saying, the voice sounding like it's coming from someone else's mouth.

"Bishop!" A face blots his vision, he can't make it clearly, but he recognizes the strong, sturdy voice and feels relieved. He hears Broyles bark out an order to someone, but the sound is miles away...

The arms release him and his sags, the pain suffocating him as the same scrambled face asks him a question that he can't hear but he instinctively answers anyway:

"Basement."

He feels the blackness settling in, a million different weights rise up off him and he's no longer aware of the hands keeping him from tumbling sideways, his eyes rolling back and he fitfully and finally gives into the utter bliss of oblivion.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: I tried and tried to get this edited down to one post but it ended up so massive I decided to break it into two parts. The second half with come shortly so you won't have to wait another month for an update (if anyone's still reading at this point GAH!) All feedback welcomed.

* * *

"Peter."

A flash of light and he's on his back, looking up at the florescent bulbs overhead. There are faces moving in and out of focus over him: prodding, touching, shifting. He's on fire.

Then everything's black.

Another flash and he's on his side on a cold gurney, he's vaguely aware of the brace being strapped around his neck. He's choking as something is shoved into his mouth.

"Peter?"

When he comes to again, he's in the kitchen, laying face-down on the linoleum. He strangely doesn't feel any of the pain and he knows that's odd. He doesn't feel much of anything at all except slow, like all his limbs were filled with water. He pulls himself upright; his head lifting easily despite how excruciatingly weighted he feels. He's off the floor and upright without really remembering exactly how he came about standing, but he's circling the kitchen—everything's tinted in grey; a strange colorless world he's woken up in.

He's at the sink without walking; looking out the window in mild interest to see if it's day or night. The outside is the same muted lack of color. Not particularly interesting, so he turns away and ventures elsewhere.

He's at a door leading to the basement. Fear floods him. Everything is washed out, dumped in bleach and suddenly everything burns. He reaches out to grab the knob, but the door swings open before he has a chance to touch it, revealing the endless darkened stairs below.

"Olivia?" He says aloud, his voice higher, etched with an edge that doesn't match him. It's Walter's voice he thinks without being too concerned. He looks for a railing for the stairs, something to guide him down into the darkness, but there's nothing. He plants a shaky foot down on the first drop of the stair.

"Olivia!" He shouts again in Walter's voice. It echoes back up at him from the depths of the descending stairs and he's taking them two at a time now, but they're never ending. He feels like he's trying to run down an accelerating escalator going the wrong way and his heavy limbs make him feel awkward.

In the blink of an eye he's touched bottom. There's no illuminating florescent light this time and the room feels alien and unfamiliar. There's no light at all. He feels along the wall, knowing intuitively that she's somewhere in the room, he just has to find her. His fingers slide along something warm; something sticky… the smell of iron wafts toward him suddenly.

He's staring down at her. The room's stark black around him. The once absent light shining brightly on her like a spotlight, he isn't sure where it's coming from.

She's wearing her normal FBI uniform: black pants, perfectly starched white shirt, black jacket. She's on her back, arms limply beside her on the concrete. Her eyes are opened, staring skyward; unseeing and blank.

She's dead.

There is no air. He can't breathe. He's drowning in a room with no air.

Another blink and there's blood everywhere: splattered on the now brightly illuminated walls, the ceiling, on the floor, covering Olivia. . . He looks down and it's painted across his clothing and drips from his hands. He drops to his knees, crawling to her to cradle her in his arms, begging her to wake up; his voice a loud trailing echo in the now impossibly large room.

But he's screaming _Peter_ instead of _Olivia _in Walter's voice, and Olivia's vanished, leaving him empty-handed and kneeling in her absence. Instead she's replaced by something else entirely.

Peter's off to the side of the room, looking down at himself as a small boy, maybe seven or eight he thinks from his favorite winter coat he's wearing. The child is a limp-limbed, pale white, messy hair ragdoll in the arms of Walter and he gazes upon the intimate moment feeling like an intruder as Walter unabashedly cries over the young boy. He feels bad for his father, the loss sucking a dark hole in the room.

He averts his eyes beyond the broken figures of Walter and the person he's lost to the opposite side of the blanched light. Him as a child stares back at him: this one alive and sad looking with the same untidy brown hair, staring directly back at him. An odd mirror image and he's reminded of something but it's like knowing the words to a song he doesn't recognize.

Peter takes a step closer to his mourning father, reaching out a comforting hand to find the young living Peter does as well. Peter's brow furrows and he sees almost humorously that the boy mimics him exactly, both standing awkwardly reaching out but touching nothing. The boy has a faint glow about him, something inherently peculiar but otherworldly that Peter can't place...

He tries to work through what he's seeing, but nothing makes sense. He turns away from the image of Walter and the young fragile boy he's holding and the stranger wearing his youthful face watching them and he's met with a ghostly figure so close to him he nearly shouts out in surprise.

Olivia's dead melted face stands before him, her entire shirt blood-red and it trailing down her shoulder in long trails of crimson.

"You're glowing." She says evenly and the entire room shakes under the force of the eruption.

"Walter!" Peter bolts upright, or tries to despite the fact that he's strapped down to something cold and hard. He strains against the restraints, panic and confusion racing through him as he tries to orient himself to something familiar. There's an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose pumping in stale air and it makes it hard to concentrate. His brain is pumping blood against his ears and he's fighting the urge to keep from crawling into his throat.

"I'm here, son." He hears Walter opposed to seeing him; his neck is stiff and suffocating inside the foam brace. He finally sees Walter through blurry eyes as he moves within Peter's line of sight. Walter's face is gaunt, drawn and intense. The images of Olivia are burnt in Peter's brain; he's fighting against the restraints so he can find her to put to rest the frightening images of her dead.

"Walter," his croaks muffled through the plastic of the mask as Walter lays his palms down on Peter's shoulders trying to steady him. There's movement all around him, but he can only catches bits and pieces of sound and action.

He strains his arm and his left hand, his broken knuckles scream in protest and he lets out a strangled gasp as he feels little bones displaced in the skin.

"We need to get him moved to a hospital." He hears somewhere off in the distance and Walter's attention is diverted, his lips pulling downward. Walter mumbles something in response but his voice is swept wind to Peter's ears.

He clutches Walter's hand with his unbroken one and squeezes it hard, looking for some sign of comfort. He feels fragile; like the little boy from his nightmare.

"Did she make it?" Peter chokes out, and Walter's heartbreaking expression is naked on his face; glassy eyes blinking back tears. Looking over his shoulder, he mumbles something about Peter's concussion to an EMT who's uncapping a needle filled with clear liquid. A fast glance to his arm to see there's already an IV hooked up and hanging from the clenched fist of a very sour looking woman.

"I need to see her! Walter, please—" He's begging now, knowing full well what will happen as soon as the plunger goes down on the needle. He's craning his head to the left, desperate to find any sign of her. There's still activity crooning around: people gathering up the left over equipment of his would-be epidemic; Broyles standing with his hands on his hips in the corner, hissing low at two agents and looking thoroughly severe; two of Tony's men in handcuffs being mirandized . A quick turn of his head and he can just make out the hallway leading to the stairs to the basement, but no Olivia.

"Peter, they're doing everything possible," Walter reassures, but it does little to ease Peter's shredded nerves. Walter nods curtly to the EMT to give him the contents of the needle while simultaneously trying to take Peter's pulse by sliding his shaky fingers under the brace to find the skin of his neck.

"Peter!" He hears the familiar voice of Astrid and Peter's feeling horribly heavy again. She bursts into his vision overhead looking just as drained as Walter.

"Astrid, tell me…" he slurs, feeling her cool hand on his heated forehead. He catches her give Walter a questioning look as he busies himself with one of the hoses attached to his arm as his eyes cast downward.

She leans close to an ear and her breath would tickle if the blackness wasn't so prominent and engulfing:

"She's going to make it, but…" He hears distantly but his whole body relaxes into nothingness, his mind filling with lazy images of the boy with the otherwordly glow before he descends.


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: thank you to everyone still following/reading/reviewing this story! I didn't anticipate the strong reaction to the last chapter, (or rather that people are sticking with it at all) and tried to get this one out ASAP as a thank you to everyone with the patients to keep reading :) All feedback welcomed.

P.S. A big thank you! to WalterWalternet, not only for the continuous, well-thought out feedback, but for alerting me that I posted the same chapter twice!

* * *

He can hear voices in the darkness and he knows that should be concerning, but he feels pinned down and little bothers him. The voices are barely recognizable, all speaking a foreign language that he doesn't understand. He catches pieces of words as they pass him by, trying to put them together in a sequence that he might be able to interpret.

"Brain damage," says one high voice.

"Swelling," answers another.

"Olivia." This one comes out clear as day; it's out of his mouth.

Tired eyes try to focus through the bright lights overhead. He blinks a few times, attempting to clue him to his surroundings. There's a shrill beeping from his left and he turns to find a monitor ticking away his heart rate with a dancing green line. The mask he remembers from earlier is replaced with plugs shoved up his nostrils and he breathes in the stocky forced air that reminds him immediately of hospitals and tries to swallow back the revulsion.

He's aware of the wave of painkillers that barely mutes the pain that accompanies every piece of skin of his body.

"Son?" Walter's voice is laced with worry.

He turns to find his father leaning over his bedside looking both immensely relieved and exhausted. He's positive if he had the energy to tilt his head he'd find Walter's makeshift nest in the chairs next to his bed. Walter's hand is a comforting presence against the starchy material of the blanket.

"How long was I out?" He asks through a raw throat. He feels like he hasn't used it in days.

Walter hesitates. "Twenty-seven hours." He finally answers.

"A whole _day?"_ Peter croaks, sounding pathetically hoarse; unnerved by the fact he hadn't felt the passage of time. He tries to lean forward, but Walter's hands keep him pinned to the bed, he's so weak he can't put up much of a fight.

There's a wild rush of images and he's reminded of his last thoughts before being rescued. The heart monitor sounds off the quickening beeps as the green line spikes with the sudden onslaught of shock that courses through Peter's fatigued body.

"Where's Olivia? Is she OK? He rasps without breath. A nurse rushes in and there's rising voices between her and Walter but he can't make out words over the thunderous beeps and raspy breathes as he tries to simultaneously breathe and shout. He hears Astrid's voice mix in as she steps into his line of sight and presses a hand firmly on his shoulder, squeezing.

"Welcome back," she smiles, talking over the arguing voices of Walter and the nurse who's chastising him for something that earns her a nasty rebuke from Walter.

"He's my son, and I have a PH.D in chemistry from Harvard…" He hears Walter bark, but he ignores the rest and focuses on concentrating on Astrid.

"Where's Olivia?" He grates, crunching the bed sheets up in his hands, his left covered in hard white plaster, he finally notices. _When they'd do that?_ He wonders.

"She's here too." Astrid begins tentatively. "She's in ICU. There were complications…" Peter's nerves are coiled as he struggles to pull himself up. Walter's beside him in an instant, helping Astrid keep him strapped to the bed.

"You have three broken ribs and a severe concussion to say the least, Peter. You must lie down." Walter's voice is uncharacteristically authoritative. "There's nothing you can do for her at present."

"How bad is it?" Peter asks, feeling the numbness starting in his chest and soon starts to spread and he assumes someone got to the morphine button. Astrid keeps her palm planted on his shoulders as she pushes him back to lie down.

"Your nose had already begun to heal, they couldn't reset the break," Walter begins, misunderstanding. Peter's frustration bleeds over into his tongue.

"Not me, Walter. How's Olivia?" He barks over his father, silencing him. Walter makes a quick "Oh," sound before restarting.

"She went through surgery to repair the damage from the gunshot wound." Peter clenches but doesn't comment. "It tore through the muscle of her shoulder, shattered her shoulder blade and broke her clavicle. She's lost a lot of blood… physically, she'll recover," Walter explains, shifting his gaze to Astrid who avoids looking at Peter altogether.

Peter doesn't miss the exchange; the same as before.

"What?" He asks his father, but it's Astrid who answers.

"She hasn't regained consciousness yet."

Peter's brow sits low on his forehead. His eyes shift between the pair conspiratorially.

"And?" He waits.

No one speaks, letting the silence hang in the air and he knows it's much worse.

He swallows roughly, unsure if he wants more details or not. He feels his eyes fog as he tries to choke down the seriousness of the situation.

"How long were we missing?" He asks in a whisper.

"Four days." Walter says.

Four days. It felt like an eternity. Everything changed in the time span of four measly days.

"How did you find us?" He looks up. Walter affectionately turns to Astrid.

"Olivia got a call out to Broyles. Astrid was able to track it back to the location."

"How?" Peter asks, vaguely impressed.

"You left the name of the restaurant." Astrid explains coyly, sending a sidelong glance in Walter's direction. "Broyles was able to scare the bartender enough into giving us information about what happened."

Peter quirks an eyebrow. The pieces weren't fitting in a way that makes sense. His lips form a question but it dies before he can get it out.

A new voice carries across the room, strict in its authority. "I've told you before: I work for the FBI."

Peter lets out a snort of derision as Broyles slides into the room, and immediately regrets it; his side flairs in pain and he's caught in a ragged coughing fit that rocks his entire body and makes his eyes water.

Walter hands him a cup of water that he takes gratefully, sucking down the water and letting the chill fill his chest.

"You mustn't overdo it son, you've been through quite the tolling…" Walter starts, but Peter waves him off over the plastic as he tips back the rest of the cup.

"I need to see Olivia." He tries again, wincing as he resettles on the bed, trying to find a more comfortable position, but eventually giving up. Everyone exchanges looks again; it's starting to get on his nerves.

"That's not a good idea." Broyles says after a long moment. Peter grips the cup awkwardly in his right hand, rolling his thumb over the ribs on the side of the plastic, peak, valley, peak, valley…

"Oh?" He says, frustrated. He sharpens his gaze in on Broyles' intense one, trying to match his temperament. After another moment, he finally speaks:

"We found Agent Dunham in the basement like you told us. By the time we got through the door she had already lost a lot of blood." Broyles explains. Peter's grip on the plastic cup tightens; it crunches loudly, intruding all other sound.

All this he knows already. He waits for the worse news.

He images Olivia's pulled, drawn face as she leans against the concrete wall waiting for him. Blood spilling through the delicate skin where the bullet punctured through muscle and bone. He sees her go blue as she waits in vain for him to come back for her.

The cup is his crumpled heart in his hand.

"She'd stop breathing before we could break the door down. Her heart stopped by the time EMT's arrived." Peter pulls his focus off Broyles, the guilt burning a hole in his guts, his eyes finding instead the brownish stains splattered on Broyles' rumpled shirt, almost entirely concealed by his jacket. Olivia's blood. He must have been there first, leaning over her, forcing air into her lungs or thumping on her chest in an attempt to bring back to life her stilled heart. The blood must have been everywhere.

"But you were able to get her heart restarted." He knows that's obvious, but he feels better saying it aloud. But it didn't seem like good news. Maybe it's not supposed to be.

Broyles nods, eyes downcast at Peter's broken and casted hand. He lets out a heavy sigh before continuing.

"They aren't sure how long she was deprived of oxygen." He leaves the statement open, hanging bitterly and thinly veiled accusatory in the air.

Peter feels his face crumble like a rockslide tumbling downward. He turns to Walter to argue, only to see the sides of his mouth turned down; his chin trembling. He doesn't need Walter to dispute what this means. He already knows.

The human brain can only survive deprived of oxygen for three minutes; after which cortical activity is threatened and chances of survival decreases. After five minutes the brain cell deterioration increases exponentially, eventually shutting down and dying. It's all very clear and deductive:

Olivia Dunham would never wake up.

"I shouldn't have left her." His breath is barely above a whisper. Astrid leans over him, her lines blurring as his eyes sting.

"They're doing everything they can." She starts, but Peter turns away from her; shielding himself from her attempts of comfort. After all they went through, the horrors they survived and his Hail Mary murdered her as much as the bullet did. If he had stayed with her, kept her breathing until help came, she'd still be alive. She wouldn't have had to die alone in a goddamned dungeon waiting for something uncharacteristically heroic that he couldn't deliver.

"I want to see her." He barks to no one. Walter jumps and Astrid's face is openly wounded. "I need to see for myself." He tries again, softer; his voice dangerously close to betraying him. He's looking to Broyles now, begging him without words for him to see firsthand what his actions have done.

Broyles looks back to Walter for a quick moment and gives him one curt nod.

Peter's carted to the ICU unit, passing rooms of people who are just steps away from death themselves. He's being pushed by Astrid in a wheelchair that he fought against, having finally surrendered after Walter threatened up his morphine to a level where he'd be out for another 24 hours.

He's thankful that Astrid's the one who's escorting him; he couldn't deal with Walter's emotional rollercoaster of having Peter back safely coupled almost immediately to the crippling low of losing Olivia for the second time, and the thought of being carted by Broyles would be a humiliating blow he couldn't stomach.

There's a family standing over a body in a bed and his stomach twists; he's reminded of the image of Walter over the young boy in his dream. This isn't the place where Olivia should be. Hadn't she just been in this exact place not but a few months ago? He remembered the anguish he felt then, witnessing her lifeless body in a cold bed, an unknown feeling of loss that he wasn't able to explain even to himself.

That had been difficult; _this _is entirely something else. This was his fault. He has to pull his gaze forward to face the the hallway, away from the families experiencing their own tragedies and lets them mourn in peace.

The chair creeks to a stop; they're just outside her room.

He can see her outline through the window, her figure muffled by monitors and blankets. How many times had he been in a hospital in his life? He thinks back to the times when he was a young boy fighting a temperature so severe that he has gaps in his childhood; spending weeks at a time in a hospital and feeling with absolute certainty that each time would be his last.

He pulls himself from the chair to stand; he feels like a baby deer: all legs and no balance but Astrid's beside him with a steadying arm, helping him find solid ground. When she's confident he won't topple over sideways, she releases him, giving him a strong smile and a promise to be just outside the room when he's ready.

"Thank you…for everything." He mumbles, feeling like he could never thank her enough.

Her eyes shine brightly, taking on the guilty mask he recognizes too well; the what-ifs if-only's and the constant replay of every second until their rescue, wondering if there was something she could have done differently.

This could have been the exact room he stood outside of months ago when they thought her dead; a sudden flash of would be déjà vu washes him, Astrid standing in the place of Rachel.

_Rachel._ He wonders if she knows yet. Another pang of blackness washes through him as he images the look on her face when she changed his existence the last time they met in one simple, broken sentence:

"_She liked you, did you know that?" _

He hadn't a response then, and he still doesn't.

_It's not your fault_ he wants to say to Astrid, but he can't bring himself to, not yet. He hopes she doesn't say it to him. So instead he leaves her in the hallway to make his way into the little room to say goodbye to Olivia for the second time.


	19. Chapter 19

a/n: a million and one Redvines to someone who helped me work through the major fears of this chapter with invaluable feedback so I could finally stop hoarding and post it already. Thank you for answering when I hollered : )

-S

* * *

Bare feet pad across the cold sterile floor, barely keeping him upright but moving him toward his destination nonetheless. He feels oddly underdressed and hugely absurd, wearing borrowed scrubs because he refuses to walk around in the flimsy napkin they try to pass off as a hospital gown. He's got his IV strapped to a tower he's dragging around with him, and his ribs still feel like they've got a baby grand dropped on them.

He stops just outside her room, taking in large gulps of breath before he's able to muster up enough courage to twist open the knob to swing open the door to shuffle into the room. The room is painted in a warm yellow color; brighter than the room should feel: it's the type of room that shouldn't give you hope for the people inside. He feels the door bump against his shoulder on its gentle backward swing and if he weren't beaten into a mash of marshmallow, he'd pull it off the hinges and toss it down the hall, he hates the institution of doors and locks so much by now.

He's momentarily distracted from the anger by the mirror that's hanging over the sink against the far wall, and he takes himself in for the first time in four days. His freshly bearded face is covered in varying patterns of bruises and gashes held together with stitching for the worst, butterfly bandages for the minor; his swelled eye a little less puffy, but his broken nose casts two dark, purple black-eyes. He feels like his reflection is a stranger. A broken, bloodied stranger.

And somehow, it doesn't seem like it's nearly enough. Not by a long shot.

He takes one long, last steadying breath before he turns to find her. He's not quite ready for what meets him.

She's deathly still in the small bed. Peter stands over her, afraid to reach out; afraid to touch. If he touches her and feels the coldness of her hand, he isn't sure if he'd be able to keep from exploding out of his skin. So he stares down, hands at his sides and just… absorbs.

She could be sleeping, she's so peaceful. Her hair's fanned out on the pillow, a stark blond against the papery blue casing and he wants to run his fingers through the strands, just to prove she's there. He reaches a shaky hand out, smoothing the hair down, and feels in embarrassment when tears sting his eyes. She looks utterly battered in the bright light, her face a mask of angry bruises and spiteful slashes that match his own and he has to grip the frame of the bed to keep from falling to pieces. She's wearing the same oxygen mask he was and her heart beats a strong, even tempo on the monitor above them. But Peter knows better.

Her left arm is nestled confined uselessly in a sling and he mindlessly straightens the creases, smoothing his fingers over the material against her limp arm and he realizes there's no _turning _into Walter at this point.

By morbid curiosity, he tugs at the edge of her to expose the red inflamed skin being held together by the row of black stitching running the length of her shoulder three inches in where they repaired the damage from the gunshot._ She'll have one hell of a scar to show off when she wakes up_, he thinks without stopping himself.

_She's never going to wake up. _

A sudden wave of nausea hits him, spinning the room and he's forced to crumple into the nearest chair, his hands cradling his head as he clings to whatever shreds of sanity he has left. His chest is heaving and the lump sits tight in his throat, and no amount of swallowing pushes it back down so he could take a breath.

"Maybe going crazy is easier than I've accused Walter of." He says, realizing he's talking to her. He chortles to himself, because now this proves it. He wipes his eyes with his good hand and practices controlling his breathing as he sits and waits for her to wake up to tell him this has all been a horrible nightmare.

"Olivia, I'm…" he trails off, his heart still firmly planted broken and out of place, and he can't come to bring himself to say anything that would do justice to what she deserves to know. So he just sits there, running a clumsy swipe down her arm to clasp her tiny hand in his broken one.

A sudden flash of anger fills his lungs and shoots to the emptiness in his chest. They made it through _hell, _through an unspeakable, terrible, hellish four days and as soon as his back is turned she just _gives up._

"Just like that then?" He grumbles, his fists clenching together, making the veins in his forearms bulge. "Five minutes alone and you just throw in the towel?" His left hand is crunching in its cast, the pain a welcoming friend. "You promised that you'd hang on." He chokes on the anger, letting the words thicken on his tongue like concrete. He stops himself from saying anything further; everything's too raw and he doesn't trust himself to speak for fear of breaking down completely.

So, being ever the genius he is, he starts on a new plan.

He maps out the following days in his head: she has a living will of no life support that Rachel will honor, again. He'll sit with her and take all the blame, from Rachel, from Broyles, whoever wants to hurl it at him. He'll take it and be thankful. He'll hold her hand and wait for the steady, rhythmic beat of her heart slows until it's reduced to a single flat note. He'll say his goodbyes and make sure Walter's in good hands and he's on the next plane back to Iraq before the day's over. He would tell no one, of course, they'd only try to stop him, so saying anything to Walter is out.

Yes, when Olivia dies his life here dies with her. He squeezes her hand in a promise. It's much more reassuring to have a solid plan to get the hell out of Boston than to be angry at the dead girl lying before him. Because of him.

"It's all different." He whispers, his voice a stranger. "It all changed and you're not here to see it." He's not talking about the Fringe division. There are so many more things he wants to say.

He expects her hand to be cold, but it's quite the opposite: it's warm to touch and he almost lets himself believe that maybe, just maybe she could be just asleep. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to focus on that hand, the one line of connection to somehow shove his energy into her hand.

Nothing happens.

"I'm fucking crazy," he mutters under his breath and scrubs his face with his hand. What kind of horrific loss did his father have to go through for traveling through the seven layers of crazy to get himself into his current state while in St. Claire's?

He pats her hair down one last time, standing and getting ready to go back and let Walter up the morphine to black him into oblivion. She's still beautiful, he thinks, even like this.

He leans low over her face; pressing a cheek against hers for a moment, taking in her scent one last time and whispers "Goodbye Olivia," into the nape of her neck before letting the tears he's tried so hard to hold back fall. He clutches at her jaw to place a soft kiss on her lips. The quick spark of electricity shocks almost more as it stings.

He almost let himself think he feels her shift minutely under him. He rests the bridge of his nose against hers and freezes: waiting for her to prove his newfound insanity by remaining ramrod straight and deathly silent.

Moments tick by and he doesn't feel so much as a twitch. His heart drops a little further and he finally pulls away. He opens his mouth to say more, but he doesn't get the chance to get anything out before all air leaves his lungs.

Her soft green eyes flutter once before opening and he knows he's stepped from intrepid fantasy to fully fledged, bat shit crazy.

"Olivia?" he asks dumbly. He isn't sure what he's supposed to say to a hallucination.

Her eyes blink sleepily; her mouth parts as she looks from his confused face to her surroundings.

"Peter?" She half-mouths. She tries to clear her throat and gives up, settling just on swallowing. If he had half a mind he'd grab her some water, but everything is blank. He's carved in stone and marble, unmoving and heart pounding and he thinks manically to see if he could pinpoint the exact moment where reality shattered for him.

"Peter." She's smiling, her eyes squinting like he's a raging fireball of light.

"Yes." He laughs, afraid to touch anything to break this little soap bubble.

"You're too bright…" she mumbles in a daze, and Peter's face squishing up as he looks to her morphine levels and wondering what the hell she's on.

A few more cursory blinks and her focus returns.

"You look awful." She says a little more clearly and Peter thinks that this vision of Olivia is pretty impressive. When he doesn't respond, her brow knits together and she blinks a few more times in thought.

"Am I dead?" She asks.

"I don't know." Peter answers honestly, after he finds his voice hiding out in his left ankle. Her mouth pulls down in a little frown, considering.

"How can I be sure?" She wonders. Peter's mind spins around and he has to bite down on his lower lip to keep from smiling.

"Well, I'm pretty confident that_ I'm _not dead." He muses, leaning close to look for any tricks or signs that he's talking to her at all, "Ergo, you must not be dead if you're acknowledging my existence." She thinks on this, lips pursed before answering.

"How do I know you're not dead then?" She returns, triumphant. Peter lets himself muse for a moment, because honestly, he's not sure if he's _not dead_ at that moment. A new idea strikes him. He leans down, cradling her cheek delicately in his broken hand and stops his mouth an inch from her lips.

"Don't be scared." He whispers against her lips in the lightest of whispers. The monitor spikes in rapid beeps and she takes a sudden intake of breath, hitching in her chest, but she doesn't say anything; frozen.

He glances at the monitor without moving his head and a sly smile breaks on his face. He hears Astrid's sudden intake of breath and the exclamation of an invective he wouldn't believe her capable of behind him and he knows he's only a few seconds away before the rest of the cavalry roars in.

"Welcome back, 'Livia." He says before tucking a finger below her chin to place a quick kiss on her lips, surprising her. Her lips are still for a moment, feeling him out before opening to kiss him back.

"I love you sweetheart, you know that?" He says into her lips.

When he pulls back, her face turns urgent, drawn white but oddly determined.

"Peter, I…" she sets her jaw to respond.

Peter doesn't have a chance to hear her retort; the doctor and a few nurses rush in behind him, elbowing him out of the way and talking back and forth in quick clips of words.

"Peter, there's something-" she calls out to him, but a caustic looking older man blocks Peter's view.

"Ms. Dunham, can you hear me?" The stocky doctor asks, thumbing open each eyelid and shining a light into each eye. "Can you tell me your name?" He follows without giving her a chance to answer. Peter feels a hand on his shoulder. He looks back at Astrid, who's got the other over her mouth in shock.

"What did you do?" She asks in wonder. Peter can only shrug; his own mouth pulled skyward at the corners. He lets Astrid give his shoulder a firm squeeze, like he'd done something miraculous. Or holding herself up. Or both.

"That's twice." She whispers. Peter's head tilts to face her, his eyebrows creeping high on his forehead. He's never considered _that_ before. He lets the words hang between them, a little white elephant dangling a secret. He feels like sunlight is glowing brightly from every pore of his skin.

"Peter," Olivia shouts over the gathered crowd and with a little push from Astrid he shoves his way to her, his plastered hand a surprising ally against the soft, delicate arms and elbows of doctors and nurses in his way.

"I'm here." He smiles, letting her reach out to him, pulling him in. Her face is scared, eyes wide. It doesn't match the intensity of his joy and that weirds him out a little, but not enough to loosen his grip on her. She's alive, and that makes him want to care about little else.

"I'm sorry." She says into his face.

A doctor has hold of a forearm now; her heart rate beeps manically as it continues its upward spike and they're speaking harshly at him, pulling him back so they can pump a beta blocker in her.

"Mr. Bishop, she needs to be examined," one is saying but he shrugs them off. He feels the static charging again, creeping up his back in into his shoulder blades, pooling in the muscle of his arms. The look on her face—the flat terror—and he knows it's not reciprocity of what he shared with her. This was urgent, terrible.

"What is it?" He asks her, blatantly ignoring all voices but hers. He's feeling the overflow of relief prickling away into concern as her face crumbles in his hands, hers fisted into the scrubs by his waist.

"Peter," she tests, eyes already glassy as they turn to slits at the doctors. It's like she's trying to tell him everything with just the syllables of his name.

She bites down on her lip before grabbing the front of scruff of his scrubs to pull him down to her. He isn't sure if she's going to kiss him or slug him, so he's surprised when she does neither; dropping his ear close enough to her mouth so he can hear her:

"You're glowing." She whispers.

Seconds tick by where he's frozen to the ground, trying to discern her ramblings. Why does she keep saying that?_ It must be the morphine, _he thinks, but it doesn't connect; she'd said it before, in the basement when they were so sure they were going to die. She must have been delirious; she must have been scared…

_It's when she's scared. _

Everything explodes. White hot understanding flashes his heart and pumps battery acid into his chest. He doesn't react. He ceases to be. All the images from his nightmare: the boy that Walter's holding, the doppelganger watching. He connects that with Olivia's half-crazed mumblings as she was bleeding out in the basement floor. That to Walter's insanity and confusion over his childhood and the inexplicable grief and resulting insanity that followed. His mother's death. His constant feeling of being out of sequence, out of place…

_He's glowing…_

He lets go of her, lets the doctors pull him back; his face blank and unfocused and Olivia's terrified. They're pumping her full of something and he knows that she'll be out for a while when she finally lets herself go.

He stumbles away from the crowded room, looking back at the doctors who are still frantically working over her; trying to discern her new prognosis, why she's a medical marvel. He lets them, watching from the doorway as she turns her head groggily to him, under the moving hands and unrelenting questions she's not answering.

He hears Walter's shuffling feet before he sees him, turning ever so slightly toward him as he's trekking down the hallway, no doubt ease dropping on the nurses about the sudden revival of the FBI agent who's come back from the dead. He watches the man's weathered, worn face as he clasps his arms warmly when he approaches.

"She's awake? That's lovely, son. Just wonderful…" As Peter watches him he feels the hole in his chest scorch, blackening him from the inside out and choking him as he watches Walter's brightened face in excitement and he almost hates himself because he has to spoil it all.

"Walter," he tests, trying to find the words for the destruction he's about to let loose. Walter turns to him, the smile still plastered on his face like a brightly colored mask.

"She said something, when she woke up." Peter says, careful in choosing the exact was in which to phrase his thoughts. His breathing is closely regulated, not that Walter would pick it up if it weren't. But it makes him feel back in control. He's still not quite sure what he wants to say. He's not sure he's ready to believe it at all, it's so absurd.

Walter's not watching at this point, deeply fascinated by the swarm of doctors over Olivia. Peter can almost see Walter's gears spinning in his head, trying to make a connection of her pull from death in Peter's close proximity twice now, but Peter isn't worried about the _why_ right now. It's easier that Walter's not staring at him, he might lose his nerve.

"She said I was glowing." He says, feeling the dip in his stomach even as the words make their way out of his mouth. He feels Walter turns to face him, the expression on his face all the proof he needs for his hypotheses. He feels pressure pushing down on him from all sides, he's sure he could just implode if he thinks about it hard enough. He wants to, he wants to be a black hole; a vortex of anger, hurt and fucking _betrayal_ and to suck in this entire world and consume it entirely.

"Son," Walter mumbles, but Peter cuts him off.

"I am not _your son_." He spats through the layered thick grief on his father's face. The hurt in Walter's eyes should be devastating. But it's not. It's the ripcord he needs to carry him away from this place, from this existence.

He turns away from Walter, away from the small gasping noises he's making, the beginnings of some semblance of explanation that Peter has no intention of ever hearing. He drags his IV behind him, almost forgetting about it until the little plastic tubing pulls against the point on his arm as he walks purposefully away, dragging it behind him haphazardly. He'll have it out in a few minutes anyway.

Just like that.

Everything he has ever known crushed in just four days.


	20. Chapter 20

wow. We're finally complete here, folks. Thank you to everyone who stuck with this piece and offered their critiques and support, but especially to CoffinWood for the invaluable feedback (and occasional kicks!) to finish this without setting my laptop on fire. Strawberry milkshakes for life, buddy.

-S

* * *

Everything's a little foggy as he stomps his way down the corridor and he's just a few expletives away from total and utter fucking annihilation. He's chagrined: a loaded shotgun that he need only aim and explode the walls with his anger. He knows Walter won't follow, not yet; Peter's realization having probably reduced Walter to a puddle of warbling neurotics outside of Olivia's room. He's safe from his father for a few minutes.

His father.

Walter's not _his father_. He's not even from this goddamned planet. The concept seems foreign and fitting if he really thought hard about his life. The room is dangerously small when he hobbles back into it, ignoring curious glances from nurses as he passes, pulling the needle to the IV straight from his arm as he goes, cutting all the ties he can to this goddamned place. He has to resist the urge to scream out his rage, swallowing it back and feeling it pound dangerously in his chest and threatening to overwhelm him.

He feels the uncomfortable pull against his skin as the IV's removed, only the blot of red remains against the bruised skin of his arm. He's sick to his stomach and has successfully given himself a brand new migraine. Thoughts, connections and memories are all fighting each other for position on the forefront of his mind. He searches for the orange envelope to find the clothes he was brought in with folded neatly inside after he tears it open.

There's just the pair of bloodied and mud riddled jeans inside; he didn't have anything else. It was all he had left in the world. They're stiff to the touch and he hates that they were never supposed to be his to begin with.

Rationalization is how he's kept himself alive so far, and it's rationalization that lets him look at the evidence as it's laid out before him. He catalogues all the information to try to find the connections: he's not from _this _universe. At some point in his existence he was brought over here by Walter. Stolen. He doesn't belong here. And somehow, (and this is worse) inexplicably, Olivia knows.

Olivia, who by all reason should have died in the dungeon of a basement. It's because he inadvertently played body snatcher and screwed up his existence that he's been running from ever since. She went through the depths of hell because he's been dressing up in another boy's skin; the ultimate wolf in sheep's clothing. There's the sweeping thought of the boy Peter was supposed to be: the boy who's probably buried off somewhere, unknowing and uncaring that Peter had borrowed his life.

He's stripped of most of the papery scrubs, gripping them hard in his hand to realize the blackish purpled shoeprints on his ribs are searing with something that he can't quite name when he thinks of the young boy with his face and everything he was supposed to be. He wonders if he would have ended up meeting Olivia eventually. If she'd even notice the difference. He drops his arms to the bed and hangs his head, choking.

"Peter." The gentle voice behind him makes him jump out of his skin. He whips around and is only half surprised when it's Walter standing in the doorway, his hands clenched around the straps of a canvas bag, his eyes lingering on the shredded envelope that's discarded on the floor.

"I've brought you some clothes." He says, the logical actions of Peter not lost on him.

Peter's crossed between seething anger and momentary relief at the prospect of clothing. Walter shuffles from foot to foot, unable to contain himself, Peter knows, as he mulls over his options, desperately not wanting the older man's help. In defeat, he outstretches an arm to take the canvas bag from Walter but refusing to look at him.

Walter's relief is like a shining sun that Peter's willing to acknowledge him at all, so he takes another step into the room. The sudden closeness makes Peter's knuckles tighten on the grips of the bag, the man in front of him a stranger.

"Just back off." He growls angrily, pushing his hand against the empty air. The stricken look on Walter's face roots him to the spot like cement. He takes a deep breath in before trying to speak. "I'm just not ready." He amends, his voice low but still seething.

"There's much you don't understand," Walter attempts but Peter's barely listening as he tears into the canvas to pull out the blurry outlines of a shirt, wanting something to distance him from Walter. There's a dip of charging fire that Peter can barely suppress before he knows a meltdown is imminent.

"I think I understand everything pretty well, Walter." His hands shake as he pulls the soft cotton over himself, wanting to add another layer. Walter's mouth opens and closes, no words escaping, just motions; a look of disapproval etching the line in his forehead that Peter recognizes and it only makes him angrier. Peter barrels forward like a snapped rubber band.

"What I don't get is," he says as evenly as he could while kicking the scrubs away and sliding into a pair of jeans, "why is it that I'm the last invited to this little party, why-"

"You would have left." Walter answers loudly and without thought, his face screwed up in defiance to Peter's anger. Peter scorches. He's right. Of course he is.

"I still deserved to know." He counters, talking deeply into his chest; not wanting to give up on the fury as it sizzles, burning brightly as a cigarette. Walter shuffles further into the room to stand by the point where Peter's head hangs low.

"Are you going to?" Walter says, whisper soft but full of implication.

"Am I what, Walter?" Peter sighs.

"Leave. Are you going to leave?" There's the brink of sorrow breaking in Walter's voice. Peter feels a seesaw of resentment and pity for the man. Every fiber of him wants to get out, to get the furthest he can from this lie he'd been living for as long as he remembers.

"You stole me, Walter. Is that what happened?" Peter looks for Walter to lie. He wants him to. Wants him to deny it. There is no lie on Walter's face though, only naked sadness of the truth.

"How's Olivia?" He asks, defeated. His finds Walter's face brightened in the rays of sunlight as it streams through the windows. He feels it warm his back and it feels comforting and alienating all at once.

Walter's lips pull at the corners, the fingers on his left hand twitching in his anxiousness. He shies from the intense gaze of his son to look backward toward the hall for a distraction.

"They've given her a beta blocker to lower her heart rate. They don't know what caused the change in her… status." Walter answers, trailing off from what Peter knows he really wants to say, looking sad and flat on his wrinkled face.

"I was so afraid," Walter begins as he takes a step further into Peter's space. Peter leans away from Walter's outstretched hand as a reflex. It doesn't go unnoticed.

Peter's face feels deflated; his skin an unwanted enemy on his back as he pulled back from the comfort of his father. He doesn't want any of it. His upturned face finds Walter's again and he can only ask clips of words, not trusting himself with sentences.

"Why?" His throat is tight and it's unbearable.

Little dribbles of tears fill in Walter's eyes, remembering some ancient ghost that Peter can't place but knows it's something terrible. He doesn't expect Walter to answer, he isn't sure he really wants to know what ordeal brought him to this universe. He's a little startled with Walter, surprisingly lucid, answers him.

"How far would you go to save the person you loved?" Walter's voice doesn't waver. It's not really a question.

"You were dying."

Olivia's tight, bloodied face shoots to the forefront of Peter's mind; the anger and instinct to save her almost primal in its pull. His chest goes tight as the words trace their way around each ear and settle uncomfortably in his throat. The things he was capable of in the dungeon on the basement were unspeakable. He knows he would have blown himself up in the attempt that might have saved her. None of it would have been made necessary had Walter not interfered.

"I wasn't yours to save!" His voice surprises him with its harshness.

"Neither was she." Walter fires back and Peter's clenches his toes to keep himself rooted. "But you saved her for the same reason I saved you." Walter's jabbing a finger in Peter's face and the blood boils with each stab.

"She never would have been there!" Peter recoils, pushing Walter's hand away angrily, his eyes betraying him as the air cracks around his shoulders. "She could have died, _she almost died_ because of what you did! Because I'm here!" The static is dangerously close to charging now, his back tingling as he shouts openly into the small room, filling it with the baritone of his voice.

He cradles his forehead in the gates of his hands, trying desperately to hamper the static electricity that's climbing through the muscles of his back. He blocks himself from Walter, jumping between the same thoughts of _I would have never met her—_and _I would have never met her_. Each devastating. He won't trust himself to talk until the charge is muted into a low rumble in his skull.

"Peter," he mumbles into the palms of his hands, feeling ridiculous because _he _is Peter, "_Your_ Peter, died, didn't he?" He muses. He doesn't need to look up to see Walter's face. He can hear the sniffling and soft choking sounds of a mourning father above him.

"I loved you." Walter gets out between rasping gasps. Peter's back prickles with the static again but he doesn't press on. He tries to think back to the terrible desire of want, standing over Olivia thinking she was dead and the depths he would have gone to save her.

He looks up to his father, face wrinkled and shining and knows Walter sees the man his child could have been and the disappointment he became. He won't reach out though, not to the man that pulled him from the life he was supposed to have to serve as a replacement to the son he'd lost. The charging inferno is a small white ball in the pit of his stomach, buried deep and now dormant, but not erased.

"I'm going to see Olivia." He says aloud, shoulders back and walking briskly past Walter as he goes to cut the last tether.

She's out cold on whatever they gave her when he makes it to her room, so he sits silently at her bedside for close to an hour, mulling things over without the distraction of having Walter's explanations. He's got everything planned out, everything he wants to tell her before he says goodbye for good. He won't leave until she understands exactly his choice, and what it means for him to to be away from her.

He grips her hand between his and the weight and warmth is almost comforting.

_If only she was supposed to be his. _

Once the waves of adrenalin give way, the exhaustion starts to creep in. He leans forward to rest beside her, his forehead dipped against the mattress and then darkness.

He feels pressure at the back of his head and he bolts backward, heart pumping as he fights his way back into consciousness. He looks down and sees her amused face staring back at him.

"Out again I see." She says to as he rubs a knuckle into an eye and tries to crack the tightness out of his neck.

"How long was I asleep?" He asks awkwardly.

"'Bout an hour." She answers.

"How do you feel?" He asks gravely as he smoothes the hair down around her part.

"Probably a lot like how you look." She answers, letting him cup her face awkwardly in between his broken hand. "But that's not what you really want to know." She says pointedly. It's scary how well she reads him sometimes.

"How long did you know?" He asks her forehead, smoothing a cheek with his thumb. He's surprised that he's not angry.

He doesn't look at her, turning her away to inspect her ear. She doesn't argue, letting him handle her without complaint. He feels her sigh though, deep in her chest.

"The night I came over." She answers.

When there's no scratch or bruise unaccounted for, he releases her to plant himself heavily into the uncomfortable seat. He smashes down the sudden urge to overthrow the chair to break through the window and run like crazy to higher ground.

"You're going to leave, aren't you?" She cuts straight to the bone.

Looking at her becomes dangerous, so he finds refuge in the russet colored lining hiding under his fingernails. He can't lie to her, he won't.

"I don't know yet." He answers as honestly as he can. Sparing her a glance, he expects her resentment to rain back on him. But her eyes are determined and focused, much more than he'd expect from someone who a few hours ago was supposed to be dead. But he's beyond the point of being surprised at this point.

"You gonna give me a head start?" He asks a pathetic joke, flicking a little piece of dust that's attached itself to the top of the blanket that's covering her.

Her face is humorless, her lips pulling into a grimace that makes his stomach burn. She scoots to the top of the bed into a seated position, Peter having to grab a hold of an elbow to help her upright because of her busted arm. He's quickly reminded of the price his deception cost and the sickening feeling growls in his stomach.

"Listen, you don't have the whole story," She spits bitterly and he's instantly on the defensive, leaning toward her to cut into her space. He's the one that deserves to be angry. Not her.

"You lied to me." He snaps. "I told you _everything._ We were about to die, and you keep this from me?" He lets the words fall hatefully down on her.

"I expect this from Walter, but from you I expected—"he starts but she cuts him off with a fist twisting into his collar to yank him close to her, face pink in the cheeks. She's got one arm still secured in the sling, which should make her look less like a threat, but in reality he'd never seen her more terrifying looking.

"Don't you even begin to tell me what you_ expect _from me." She snarls dangerously. He's so thrown off by the sudden shift in her mood that he's struck into silence. He lets her twist him closer to her, feeling her anger letting it fuel his own.

"I was willing to die for the mistakes you made," she snakes out as he opens his mouth but she stomps over him, the monitor spiking again and he'd check to see if anyone's concerned if he weren't afraid she'd set him on fire if he pulled back to look.

He's surprised when she pulls him in to crush her lips against his in a possessive kiss and the anger shifts into swirl of raw emotion: betrayal, anger, resentment all mixed with the sudden flash of lust and something bordering beyond all that but that doesn't keep him from pulling her closer to him to return the kiss ten-fold. He pours himself into the kiss, fighting angrily with her tongue and he's sure she's trying to swallow him whole. He's panting when she finally pushes him away, landing ungracefully back in his seat with a thump.

"You don't know anything." She mutters darkly under her breath, so low he thinks he wasn't supposed to hear it. Her pupils are blasted open in black ink, the cracking surging of energy almost palpable but her face is dangerously neutral. His hammering heart pushes the electric pulse through his skin and it's crystal clear and monumental. Something new strikes him.

"It's only a matter of time before they come for me." He argues.

"So it's a better idea to run away from law enforcement." She comments. He's annoyed by her logic. But it doesn't matter—it's not enough. He opens his mouth for another angle when she grips his hand in hers, a tight squeeze and the spark shocks him bone deep.

"I won't put you through this again." He grumbles, forcing himself to look her in the face. "I can't. And it will be far worse when Big Eddie tracks me down." He starts going with the speed of a locomotive. "And whatever this is," His hand fans out between them, "this isn't what I want for you."

She's been pretty quiet after the kiss up until she hears the words leave his mouth and she quirks her chin back in his direction, face passive but a fiery intensity burning in her eyes that Peter doesn't miss.

"You're not doing this for me." She says evenly. Peter opens his mouth to retort but she squeezes his hand to shut him up. He drops his chin, flexing the muscles in his jaw to chew over if she's right or not.

"I can't stay here." His voice is low. A slight turn in his neck and he's gazing through the window, wondering if she'd come with him if he asked. The sun's bright filtering in through the paned glass of the window and he feels oddly homesick. She doesn't say anything at the moment, and for that he's grateful.

"I don't belong here, Olivia." He lets the words slip delicately from his mouth, every bearing of his existence pulling him beyond the shoreline of everything he wants and more.

"I'll find you." She offers.

Peter reads her face, finally giving her a quick nod. _She can try, _he thinks and he's sad. He closes their distance and pulls her toward him, planting a soft kiss on her forehead and lingers so he can memorize her smell.

"I meant it, you know." He whispers into her hair, gripping her face harder than he means to. He doesn't dare look her in the face, he might second guess himself if he does that, he'll be trapped here forever. She doesn't say anything, but he feels her nod against the scruff of his cheek.

He lets her go.

He's out the door without looking back, feeling her gaze cast him off and carrying the canvas bag that holds what's left of his meager processions. He leaves everything else behind him to step into the bright warming light of a universe that's not his but has played home to him for as far back as he remembers. He has no doubt that Olivia will eventually find him, but he's got the head start and that's all he needs to get as far away from here without jumping galaxies. He stands on the grass outside the hospital and looks up to where her room should be, half expecting her ghostly outline to stare back at him, but the reflection from the morning sun is too strong, blinding the windows and making his eyes burn.

He turns away from the sunlight, letting it tumble over his shoulders as he stuffs his hands into the coat that Walter had the forethought to bring him and decides that this is a sign if anything.

"Northwest it is." He sighs and walks away from the bleeding daylight.


End file.
